I sometimes wonder: what if?

What if I had been born with more imagination, talent, artistic ability or intellectual capacity than was granted to me? What if I’d grown up to have more wisdom than is mine?

What if I had more depth as a human being?

What if I hadn’t been born working-class in the Midwest but rather to wealth in mid-town Manhattan? Or to college professors in Berkeley?

What if I’d not been so slight in stature that I was typically the last kid picked for a team? What if I were tall and strong, with perfect teeth and an infectious, extraverted personality? What if I’d had charismatic good looks in this life?

What if I had been able to write the Great American Novel or been able to produce photographic art rivaling Ansel Adams? Or Annie Leibovitz?

What if I’d lived one of the great love stories? How would my life be different if I’d found my soulmate early in life and had a loving, devoted partner by my side through all my struggles?

What if I’d not had to cope with chronic pain for most of my life?

What would my life be like today if even one of these things had been different?

These are thoughts I have on occasion. Typically, I’ll go down this path when I’m feeling a little sorry for myself or things are just generally not going well. That’s not really the case at this moment, though, because what currently brings on such mental meanderings is that I’m wondering how it is that I ended up here. After 37 years an Oregonian, here I am, all of a sudden, a Californian.

I guess the most terrible thing that’s going on right now is that I’m missing “home.”

I was on the phone yesterday with a friend who was, herself, 19 years an Oregonian — and has just moved to Pennsylvania to take on a new job. At the other end of the line I heard her teenage daughter come into the room and ask who she was talking to, to which she replied, “my friend Jim, in California.”

Jim. In California.

How weird to hear those words.

How could this possibly be?

Earlier this year I was a finalist for a position that would have landed me in one of my favorite little college towns on the planet: Corvallis, Oregon. From the moment I discovered the announcement, I pictured myself there, living back in Corvallis: my home for a full twenty years (1970-90).

What if I’d gotten that job?

I guess in a parallel universe, I wowed them at the interview and ended up there. But in this version of reality, I experienced another outcome: needing to move on from the rejection and continue with the interviews. I subsequently traveled to places like Burlington, Vermont; Palm Desert, California; Vancouver, Washington; and Kentfield, California…ending up with the job offer that landed me in my current location.

So here I am: now a Bay Area Golden Stater…wondering what life has in store for me in this place…and having an ache in my heart for a land I call home.