Kate

Jan 31, 20188 min read

My Love Affair with Santa Barbara

Updated: Feb 14, 2018

Have you ever been to Santa Barbara?

You’d love it there, I know.

I went two weeks ago.

I flew to L.A. and rented a car and drove and hour-and-a-half North, up the coast to the sleepy beach town.

Actually, I fly home to Santa Barbara all the time.

I’m always craving a good trip to Southern California.

It’s perfection, really.

That, plus I’m everlastingly homesick.

All the time, I miss Santa Barbara. It’s soft, sunshine-colored breezes and the lemon, sometimes orange, smell of the balmy air.

And it’s salty, too. In paradise, frothy ocean waves blow big breaths of briny, blue sea air up off the beach and onto the land. The gusts tangle with the perfumes of budding roses at the Mission garden and linger in sunrooms of Spanish-style cottages that are built in the folds of the American Riviera.

When I’m there, I wish I could stay forever and never leave.

In Santa Barbara, I wake up to early brightness that promises warmth.

In the morning, gallons of glowing, golden light pour through my bedroom window, kissing my face flirtatiously and tempting me to rise. When I do, coffee is served and topped with heavy, sweet cream that my mother whips up fresh. She fries us up thick slabs of center-cut bacon and scrambles soft eggs with mascarpone and fresh herbs. We halve ripe avocados and smear the meat onto toasted San Luis Obispo sourdough bread.

I like to spend the morning drinking my coffee in my mother’s backyard. I recline on her patio, surrounded by citrus trees that are rooted in thick knots of honeyed jasmine. I’m often joined by fluttery white-winged butterflies and sunbathing blue-bellied lizards.

Her view is delicious.

In her house on a hill, she’s spoiled with a perpetual view of the city below and the sandstone Santa Ynez Mountains beyond. From her backyard, you can see the pointy steeple of The Arlington Theater and the clock tower at the top of courthouse. If you look a little further, you can see the outline of the Mission through willowy eucalyptus trees. There are palms and red tile roofs on stucco homes. The slight peaks of the hilly range that rise up beyond the city draw a soft line on the horizon. I see lots and lots of sky.

I love my mother’s house so, so much. It’s a real treat to wake up there.

In her kitchen, big bowls always overflow with juicy citrus fruits— lots of lemons and a few limes. Wall shelves are crowded with one-of-a-kind ceramics and important collectables. There are mugs and dishes and tea pots fired with bright glazes and painted with desert scenes and cactus silhouettes. There are pictures of my brothers and lots of pictures of Paris.

There’s not a shower in the world that I love more than hers. It’s open and tiled in blue. A curtain of sea-colored glass hangs over a big window that offers bathers a ferny view of the side yard garden while they lather and rinse. Sea shells and beach glass rest on the low sill between bottles of gardenia soaps and Moroccan shampoos and cream conditioners.

After a morning at my mother’s, I like to spend a whole day at the beach.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

When I was home a couple of weeks ago, I spent an entire day at the shore.

I painted my body with coconutty SPF’s and shiny tanning oils and donned my cheekiest bikini bottoms. I packed a lunch of adobado tacos and three marijuana joints and a big bottle of lemon flavored sparkling water.

I spread out across my back on a big, yellow and white striped beach blanket and buried my feet in the hot sand. The sun licked my oiled skin. I smoked a whole joint and fell into a soothing sleep.

When I woke up, beads of sweat pooled on my upper lip and slid down the back of my neck. I was crispy hot.

The green ocean water, dusted with light diamonds, gurgled an invitation for me to wade in it’s shallow tide. The ocean cooled and refreshed me.

I took a long walk, past all the swimmers and sun tanners, to where I had a whole secret cove of sandy beach all to myself. Close to shore, where the waves broke, a pod of dolphins flipped and tail splashed in the sea. Ocean birds, gulls and pelicans, broke the glossy surface of the water with steep dives aimed at a lunch of shrimps and whole fish.

The tide lowered. The water pulled back and back and back, freckling the beach with rock pools of still water that warmed to hot under the high sun. I peeled off my bathing suit. In the pools of ocean, I bathed naked like a mermaid. I scrubbed the dead skin off my body with grainy sand and substituted cucumbers on my eyes with pieces of kelp weed.

I smoked another joint.

The walls of my beach tub breathed with aqueous life. Fragile sea anemones crusted with broken shells and barnacle bits opened and closed their sticky tentacles. Clusters of mussels cemented themselves to the rocks and orangey colored crabs chewed on bites of crustaceans and algae.

When it was time to leave, I was sunburned. My skin dried tight around my bones. The sear itched so damn good.

Back at my mother’s house, I marinated in her bubbly jacuzzi despite my burn. Then, I cut off the spike of a ripe looking aloe plant and massaged the moisturizing sap all over my body.

I drank an afternoon cup of hot, black coffee because I like drinking hot coffee on hot days.

I smoked a whole joint that was leftover from lunch.

This is bliss, I thought.

After a long day in the sun, my tummy was hungry for something to eat

I always like to go out to dinner with my dad when I’m in Santa Barbara.

We always invite my brothers, David and Sam, and my dad’s girlfriend, Shelley. If my brother Nathan and his wife Mercedez lived in California, they would be invited, too. Sam brings his girlfriend, Rebekah, and I bring Tim when he comes to California with me. My brother David has a new girlfriend named Anudhi. Maybe next time I’m in town, she’ll come to dinner, too.

Sometimes we eat at Ca’Dario Pizzeria. Our hungry group spreads out across a long table in the small restaurant that has an open kitchen.

To start, we order wine all around. Then, plates of Lattughine Verdi, a salad of little gem lettuce with red onions and bleu cheese, and Burrata Caprese. We take turns forking bites of the milky cheese and meaty tomatoes that are seasoned with chunky peppercorns and flaky salt.

We order exceptional pies that are baked in a large pizza oven at the end of the bar.

I always order the same one. It’s a pizza called Tartufata and oh, lord, is it divine. Truffle cheese is melted on to a crust that is buttery and deliciously charred. Then crispy sage and meaty shaves of earthy black truffles.

I like that the pizzas, the dough stretched to order by hand on a floured surface, are appropriately sized. They are rich. I can usually only put down a slice or two before I’m begging the waitress to bring me a to-go box.

We never have room for dessert.

Other times we like to eat at Olio e Limone Pizzeria because they serve Lambrusco by the glass (although we usually just order a bottle) and also because they serve my favorite preparation of asparagus in the whole world.

Soft boiled eggs bleed gooey yolk over grilled asparagus spears. Gorgonzola is melted overtop and to finish the dish is garnished with crumbles of salty prosciutto.

Fuck, it’s good.

I also love eating at Tee-Off.

Midtown, neon signs spell out the words, “PRIME RIB” and “COCKTAILS” above the restaurant’s front door. A blue martini with an olive glows over the “Tee-Off” hyphen. Inside, the kitschy, golf-themed steakhouse is poorly lit and crowded with studded, leather booths that aren’t tall enough for short diners who might sit at the table.

The food is fantastic.

I like to eat the sirloin steak sandwich. The USDA Prime cut is cooked to your preferred temperature and served open-face on a buttery piece of garlicky toast with a big scoop of mashed potatoes that are ladled with thick gravy.

I usually gain a few pounds when I’m at home.

But, we don’t always eat in restaurants.

When I was home a couple of weeks ago, I invited my dad and his girlfriend to join me at the Mission Rose Garden for a dinner picnic. I picked them up at their house so that my dad could show me the freckled orchids flowers opening up in his shade-cloth greenhouse and also his collection of terra cotta pots planted with spiky succulents and cactus clippings.

We loaded up the car with lawn chairs and a big blanket.

At the Mission, I kicked off my sandals and walked barefoot through the grass to an empty spot on the lawn near a bush of “Over The Moon” roses. The garden was a mix of eucalyptus smells with rose smells and sea views.

I unloaded the picnic.

For dinner we ate dried Mandarin oranges and fresh blackberries. We dipped slices of Persian cucumbers into garlic hummus. We alternated layering crackers with wedges of a dry, veiny bleu and then a French-made, triple-creme cow’s cheese. We ate Spanish ham and spicy salami slices. My dad drank two beers and I drank a sparkling water.

This is bliss, I thought.

I love to see my dad. I am my father’s daughter.

But also I am my mother and I love to visit with her, too.

The last time I was in Santa Barbara, unfortunately, I didn’t get to see her. When I was home in California, she was off in France, taking cooking classes in Nice and breaking fresh baguettes for breakfast in Paris.

I missed her a lot.

I wished that we could have lunch together on the patio at C’est Cheese or brunch at D’Angelo’s Bakery. I wished we could order iced teas and talk about which of my girlfriends from high school is getting married next or how was Chicago?

Sometimes my mother and I like to get juices at Whole Foods. I order a custom blend of carrot, kale, beet, apple and orange. We sip on them at Angel’s Nail Salon where the owner, Lee, asks me where I’m living now and tells me that I look good. She polishes our toes perfectly. We thank her kindly and I promise to pop in for another pedicure the next time I’m in town.

I’d like to visit Santa Barbara again very soon.

What’s more is that I’d like to live there again.

There’s a house I love on Pedregosa Street on the West Side. A grand bougainvillea tree with electric, pink flowers climbs up the side and droops over the square entryway of the house. I like the way the hot pink flowers look up against the chalky walls. I like that it’s small — just big enough for me and my little family and that it looks like a house that you might not find any in other place but Santa Barbara.

It’s not for sale or even for rent. I live there only in my dreams.