Lookin’ Out My Backdoor

Tambourines & Elephants
 Playing in the Band 

Old School **VIDEO**

Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel

I love being here, looking out my back door.

Seeing mountains and green trees and beautiful skies every day.  Feeling the cool coastal breeze pass on through on a fine summer’s day.  The birds and dragonflies humming about, the deer and bears eating dandelions in the meadow, the blackberries and apples ripening on the vine as they have always done.

Happy Hum-people going about their day in an easygoing lazy way, a casual wave of the hand, a friendly smile and hello.

There’s a peace and rhythm in Humboldt filling our minds with calm and cheer.  We see the bright green emerald grass emerging under our feet and hear the ocean’s distant terrifying roar;  it brings a sense of  life to the vibrant fore.

We enjoy the last of the epic summer sunsets and tall white cumulus clouds while relishing the start of a season full of foggy mornings.  We love spending summer dreaming of winter storms, and then the opposite. 

I love that everyone here loves Humboldt so much.  I love being home on the North Coast.

There’s a gentle ache for Humboldt that lives in all of us.  It’s our own little world that we live in, but that’s OK;  they happen to know us here.  It’s a safe place where we can go and not be questioned for who we are.  It has its own sense of comfort, goodness, and a special warmth;  the touch of a friendly hand and a talk beside the fire.  We know the next best thing to being cared for is caring for someone else.  And we all do; whether rich or poor or something in between.

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but life was never really ordinary.  I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.  Likewise, I never imagined that Humboldt might be something I’d miss– like tambourines and elephants playing in the band.

Yeah, it’s all here, everything one wants and hopes and dreams for.  Life used to be so damn hard.  It’s not so much anymore.  It’s the same for anyone, I suppose, no matter where it is they hang their hat. 

Maybe that’s why we call it home.  Home is the nicest word there is.

It just took me awhile to realize that, lookin’ out my back door.