Kathleen Clary Miller has written 300+ columns and stories for periodicals both local and national, and has authored three books (www.amazon.com/author/millerkathleenclary). She lives in the woods of the Ninemile Valley, thirty miles west of Missoula.  

“Don’t despair,” my UPS deliveryman encouraged when he noticed the holes in the ground where our For Sale sign had been. We uprooted it, I told him, because my desire to return to my home state of California had been thwarted by drought and uncertainty. Would my birthplace, in fact, still be the same after eight years away? What did the future hold there? Best to lay low in what may well be the last best place with an abundant well; postpone fantasies of rekindling my past in year-round perfect weather.

“Remember,” he added as he gestured toward a picture postcard blue sky sprinkled with great white cotton-ball clouds, “I’m from there too, and a day like today that we appreciate here is just another ho-hum day there.” He had a point; I do remember feeling rather uninspired about 85 degrees while singing Christmas carols.

But I ached for sea breezes (I’m a salt-water woman), warm Santa Ana winds, the particular late-afternoon light that falls across Southern California—I could go on and on. When you go back three generations, there are no doubt tree rings with my DNA on them.

Last November I’d had enough of the pining and started packing. My husband reluctantly agreed to the return ticket, but big, bad El Nino storms were supposed to dump snow on the Sierras and save the day. When they didn’t, even I balked. Perhaps better to remember the sweet days gone by than to try to satisfy my thirst.

When I was born, California’s population was 11 million. Today, it is almost 40 million. In a place that has always been arid, such explosion has brought about possible catastrophe, as southern residents in particular have turned dry ground into oasis, fashioned Disneyland in a desert.

Meanwhile I pour over the maps as the red-colored harbinger of drought spreads upward through Oregon, Washington, and right up to Montana’s western borderline. I read the Missoula newspaper reports about officials promoting “growth, growth, and more growth!” Be careful, Treasure State, what you wish for. I’d remove from the airport gift shop shelves those tee shirts that boast A River Runs Through It. Feeling unbridled desire for development? When the refugees start pouring in, well… if you build it, they will come.

Now that my nostalgic re-entry to Southern California has stalled, my perspective here has changed. Spring rain is glorious, mud magical; thoughts of snowy days ahead are welcome salvation, rescue from the hard truths of climate change and population overflow. Today I raise my glass of fresh, free water in a toast I thought I’d never make:

“Here’s to a really bad winter!”