Some Dance to Remember, Some Dance to Forget: A Few Thoughts on Iraq, 'Hotel California' and Coming Home

FOR THE PAST three years, I've been away from California, living in Arizona but returning to the Golden State as much as I could. It was pretty clear early on that I began pining for it; I think as I hiked among the saguaros of the outlying terrain of Tucson and elsewhere, I realized that these were not my people. (Yes, I'm referring to the saguaros; while 'tis true that we are all part of the web, plants and people alike, these cacti were outliers among my crew, and I just could not get with the program.)