surprised? the baron is too.

today the baron is thinking about riverside, california, where she grew up.

this morning, when insomnia hit her, between the hours of 3 and 5 a.m., the baron remembered the sandwich shop very close to her childhood home, located in a sweet shopping area nostalgically called the town center. the town center, in addition to this sandwich shop, is also home to a coffee shop (locally owned and operated), a bagel shop (locally owned and operated), a children's book store (locally owned and operated), and various other shops and eateries.

not all the shops at the town center are locally owned and operated - there's recently a starbucks there, as well as a rite aid - but the flavor of the place, to the baron, remains undiluted by these nationwide chains.

from the town center, her mind wandered westward, toward riverside's oldest neighborhoods, some of which are in dire need of some tlc, a few of which host some really amazing manors, the likes of which are no longer built. that's maybe her favorite part of town, at least for the aesthetics... the houses are rambling and beautiful, and sit on huge lots. she often wishes she owned and lived in one, right at the base of mount rubidoux.

from there, she thought over to the university of california at riverside, a campus that is apparently booming. she thought about the one big mall in town, called the galleria at tyler, and about how her first job was at a bookstore there. she thought about downtown, about the christmas lights at the mission inn, and about the central library, and about the barbeque place across the street from both of them, a spot she frequented in her pre-vegetarian years.

reader, this morning, between 3 and 5 a.m., the baron thought over all her favorite parts of riverside, and you know what? she experienced a jarring realization.

she misses riverside.

she had been saying, lo' these years, that she misses california, but the truth is she misses riverside. in her teens and early twenties, she thought that the town center, and the mall, and the library and riverside's quaint downtown were consipiring to suffocate her, literally choking the breath right out of her, so badly did she want to escape. she rejected riverside, and california, thinking that only a failure would choose the unadventurous life, living in a state already experienced. there was, after all, an entire country out there yet to be seen.

you can see, reader, how this early morning realization came as a shock.

it might be that her mother's reports of 75 degree days, coupled with one month more of actual winter in maryland, is helping the baron shellac a coat of nostalgia, and whimsy, and wasn't-it-good-when onto her childhood memories.

or, maybe not.

maybe she really DOES want to end up right where she started. what an arresting and frightening thought.