I never thought I would miss the mountains that cradled me. "I wake up looking for them, but they are never there." He had shared with me. It was the flatness of Berlin that deepened his nostalgia for the San Gabriel mountains, it was the lack of natural structures in Mitte which made watching sunsets impossible.
Perhaps it is because we come from different puddles in the same rainstorm, but I do not feel the same nostalgia for Mount Baldy. You see, the San Gabriel mountains have never been close, they have always been something adored from a distance. It's the mountain chain that lives and breathes behind a Southern Californian window.
In winter, it stands as a symbol of seasonal existence, and consequently, of longing for seasons. It is the closest thing to 'beyond'. Beyond the freeway, beyond the city, beyond the weather. A symbol that just a car ride away, there lies a place worth discovering.
The call for exploration is what I miss while studying far from home, far from Mount Baldy. " We should go there once we're back."