In the Land of the Lotus Eaters

My father used to say that the indigenous Californians were less violent than the plains tribes. I didn’t think of that as a sign of a difference between the tribes themselves so much as the effect of the weather and geography of California. When you’re in California, particularly on the coast, with the sound of the waves crashing, night and day, on the beach, things don’t matter as much. You don’t want to do so much. It doesn’t seem important. There are no toll roads, and flowers grow everywhere. It is truly like the Land of the Lotus Eaters in the Odyssey.

A Relaxed Vibe is Everywhere

This morning I got up late, worked on reading and journaling, and finally went to yoga at noon. The relaxed vibe of California is everywhere. The PG & E workers with their truck-mounted basket lift seemed relaxed, not hurrying. The yoga teacher, before delivering a demanding 75 minute Ashtanga class, smiled, shrugged and said “of course we’re not going to expect to try *hard*”…. Even the homeless people, dragging their carts down Highway 1, looked relaxed.

There Are No Problems, Only Solutions, Right?

I took pictures of the flowers on the deck here at my AirBnb and I drove around down town and looked at the port and at the Morro Rock rising in the bay. Around 2 p.m. I realized that none of the stuff I was so worried about really mattered. It was all going to be okay. Out on the beach, people walked with dogs and the ocean threw itself again and again on the shore. All was beauty, all was peace, there was, it would seem, no problem or danger anywhere. Downstairs in the AirBnb house, I smelled the distinctive sweet tobaccoey smell of weed.

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,

In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined

On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

They Didn’t Believe Anyone Needed Them …

The Land of the Lotus Eaters in the Odyssey poem refers to a culture given over to eating the opium poppy. In the story, Odysseus and his men are trying to get home to Greece. They’ve been ten years fighting the Trojan War. They need to be strong and relentless now and fight for their return home. This “nostoi” or return is for both for their families’ well being and for their own. Now instead, when they meet the Lotus Eaters, they “lose all desire to return home.” They doubt their wives still remember them. Their children really don’t need them. They don’t care about anything except “to eat the flowery food.”

I have not lost my desire to return home, exactly. I know what side my bread is buttered on and what job pays for my mortgage and my AirBnB bill. Yet I had to admit that I felt the sense of the Land of the Lotus Eaters, both of California and of the Odyssey, today. I drove up to Cayucos and back down Highway 1, talking to my son Brian on the phone. What did any of it matter anyway, I considered as I stared at the ocean. Waves just kept breaking on the beach again and again.

Geography is Destiny

In the past I have said that geography is destiny. This always earns some scoffing and denial, but I reiterate: the geography in which you’re born defines the person you become. The geography of the place you chose to live will color your thinking and even distort your conclusions. Anyone who doesn’t believe this, ask yourself. Do you think all those people down in Texas are so different from us? What exactly is special about those of us north of the Mason Dixon line? We’re all very similar, in truth. It’s just that the Texans have been in Texas and they think like that now. The term “Lotus Land” is often used as a joke. But the Land of the Lotus Eaters is not a joke in specific, and it’s not a joke as a concept. Your regional culture has an effect on you. It’s a real thing.

This Is Not Exactly The Way I Want to Roll …

You’re known by the company you keep. And although I love California, and its beauty and nobility, I don’t feel that my response to my first day of vacation here was particularly promising. Back in the Midwest, the meme is that Californians lack the strength to do the hard unpleasant stuff, in their lives and in their relationships. I defend us Californians without fail. But I don’t argue that we’re perfect.

Tomorrow, I promise myself, I will be more active. Yoga *and* hiking, at least. And I reflect: in the Odyssey, the land of the lotus eaters is a dangerous detour. For me, it is my original home.

I wonder, as I write that, how much of a Californian I still am. I live in Colorado, after all. Now that I’ve returned to California, in 2024, am I an observer, not a participant? I think about Odysseus and his men, having to fight for the chance to return home. It is true: once you’ve left home, you have to fight to return. Could I make such a fight? Could I return?

That is the question.