I can’t deny getting homesick now and then.  The Delta feels like a place in which I could live for the rest of my days, but there’s something in the cadence of a Midwestern voice that appeals to me.  

This afternoon, I spent a few hours in the home of Skip and Judy Vandeventer.  Though twenty years here, and more than that in California, they come from Michigan.  The crinkle of their eyes has a familiar cast.  Judy’s spunk and her blue hair; Skip’s wide smile; the burn across their open, candid faces — these remind me of days when I walked the streets of Kansas City with my toddler in a buggy and the dog pulling at his leash.

I’d taken many pictures from in front of their house before I met them.  Mt. Diablo sits on the horizon directly across the river.  She wears each crimson sunset in their evening view.    I interloped on their turn-out to shoot from my car window, hoping for leniency or a friendly indulgence if the owners of the house happened to see me.

Then they came to the Delta Life Art show at the marina, and I no longer need to trespass.  

Today I walked around their wide living room, ogled their amazing decor, and staked a claim in the Penguin-themed guest room.  I marveled at Judy’s sewing center which sprang whole cloth from a void in the air beside their house, construction abandoned by a builder on the lam from his bank.  How lucky they were to snag this place for a song in a short sale!  Now their roots sink far into the silt of Andrus Island, and by happy chance, I get to call them “friend”.

It’s the twenty-first day of the sixty-ninth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life Continues.