Riley | A love letter to the foothills, to California

At the ripe age of 19, with nowhere else to turn my spite, I tried to make California repent. I bitched about short days in winter and arid hills in summer until not a season or friend was spared my complaining. 

It’s easier to blame a place, you see, than yourself, your mistakes or your own mental miswirings. I could take all of the hard feelings — the homesickness, the failing friendships, the never feeling quite good enough — and chalk it up to being out of my depth in unfamiliar waters. To be completely candid, I spent most of my freshman and sophomore years at Stanford trying so hard not to drown that I didn’t even realize swimming was an option. 

And then, in one of the brief moments my brain allowed me to come up for air, I realized that somebody had thrown me a buoy. To this day, I couldn’t tell you exactly who. Maybe it was The Daily, my best friend Zadie, a quarter off-campus in Washington. Maybe it was me. But when I was finally above the surface for long enough to see what was around me, I realized that sinking to the bottom was no longer an option I was willing to entertain.

The version of California that I had hated (or at least, pretended to) had been colored by a paralyzing sadness, one that turned beautiful mornings into bitterness about cloudless skies, one that once complained, “There aren’t enough trees on The Dish.” 

I spent another year trying to unlearn this anger. I had learned to float well enough that I could find friendships, reignite old passions and let go of the East Coast exceptionalism that forced me to spend every conversation with a California local debating, defending and ultimately, getting destroyed.

But letting go of that buoy and learning to swim on my own? That required purpose. I was lucky enough that, with a little initiative on my end, that purpose sought me out in spaces I already loved to occupy. 

Becoming a News managing editor at The Daily taught me to nurture writers, not just their work, if you want to read great writing. Becoming a Run Club co-president taught me that the effort and kindness you are willing to share will leave a far greater legacy on people than numbers and performance. Playing “RA Quigley” in my final Gaieties taught me to show kindness for that same, embittered, younger version of me and, perhaps most importantly, gave me hope that as I move on, Stanford will continue to be the place I now know and love it to be. 

At risk of getting all “home is where the heart is” on you, I fell in love with California when I realized I had made a family here. It turns out, cloudless skies make for the best starry nights, laughing your guts out at inside jokes you’ve made with your favorite people in the universe. It turns out, dining hall food tastes (marginally) better when eaten in the company of people you love. It turns out, The Dish has an adequate amount of trees when you run it with people who support and challenge you through every goal you ever set your eye on. 

And it turns out that driving up into the foothills alone, truly and genuinely happy after everything you’ve been through, in this place you swore would always haunt you — well, it feels like love. It feels like home. 

And as I leave The Farm, I’m sure I will find joy, belonging and things to complain about in the next place. And the next. 

But this one here? 

It’s pretty f–king special.

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