California: “California” — Joni Mitchell

California used to be the place people would go to get lost. Or rather, it’s the place they would go to lose sight of who they once were and find their truest self. It was the ultimate frontier, a boundless country supposedly endowed to Easterners by Manifest Destiny. When my parents moved to San Francisco, the dream of wide-open space was still there; it was still a malleable place where they and so many others moved to help sculpt the landscape into something that reflected their ideals.