Eleven
My Past continues to reconfigure itself into something of a more pleasant—and a more distant—caliber every year. "Every year" is language I don't usually use, so you might suspect some annual event has just occurred. And it has: Wednesday, June 30 at 11:45 pm (23.45 to you Euro folks) marked eleven years since I first arrived in San Francisco.
With stories of Then ("orange and fluffy") and stories of Now ("but you can't die, Norman!") to follow when I have more leisure time, suffice it to say that for eleven years I have been perfectly At Home in this lovely place, through the worst pains I could have ever imagined, or while soaring at heights I never thought possible.
There is nothing I would trade about my life. My mistakes are my own; my successes are just as much mine. My neophilia remains intact, as does my Openness towards the Universe.
Now get me some granola while I slip on my Birkenstocks, would ya?