Please Stop Telling People About the North Coast*

In March, I made the mistake of looking at Silverdale apartments over breakfast. I wrote a whole post about the windows, the built-in storage and the terrace I felt somebody should immediately give me.

Well. We moved.

Since August, my boyfriend and I have been living in a GRACE Elevated Home, and I’m afraid the windows are every bit as good as advertised. We have room to put things away. We have room to leave things out without making the entire apartment look as though we’re packing for an emergency evacuation. There are actual, properly sized bedrooms, including an extra room for visitors, which I mentioned to practically everyone we know before we’d even finished unpacking.

“You should come and stay,” I kept saying. “We’ve got the space now.”

Please remember this generous, welcoming woman. She will become relevant shortly.

A few days ago, I read this SFGATE article about California’s “Secret Coast”. It was about Gualala and Point Arena, farther down the coast, and the familiar complication of visitors supporting local businesses while also changing the places they’ve come to enjoy.

My immediate thought was: do we really need to tell everybody?

I have lived here since August.

There are things in our freezer that have been in Silverdale longer than I have.

Nevertheless, I read the article with the weary concern of someone whose family has maintained the same stretch of coastline for five generations. More visitors. More cars. What would happen to the character of these places? Had anyone considered the residents?

My boyfriend looked up from his breakfast when I said that.

“Us?” he asked.

“Residents generally.”

“You were sending people apartment listings in July.”

That was different, obviously. Those were people I liked.

The embarrassing part is how quickly somewhere can start feeling like yours. We’ve barely settled in, but I already have a preferred place for coffee and a route I take when I need to get out of the house. I recognise a few people without knowing their names. When we come back from somewhere, there’s a point on the drive where I stop thinking about getting home because it already feels as though we have.

I hadn’t expected that to happen so quickly. Perhaps that’s why the thought of things changing bothers me, even though our arrival is itself one of the changes.

And I know perfectly well that the places I like need customers. The café cannot run on my emotional attachment to it. Restaurants need bookings, shops need people coming through the door, and somebody has to pay for a hotel room on a wet Tuesday in November. I want those businesses to survive. I also apparently want to walk straight in and find my favourite table available.

I’m discovering some flaws in my position.

Meanwhile, we’ve been getting the spare room ready. Proper bedding, somewhere to put a suitcase, a lamp you can reach from the bed. I’ve already started a list of places to take people when they visit, and it is becoming quite long.

My boyfriend pointed out that inviting people to stay and then showing them how lovely everything is sounds suspiciously like tourism promotion.

I told him we were talking about a few friends.

He said presumably everybody starts with a few friends.

So yes, come and visit. We have room, I genuinely want to see you, and there’s a place I think you’ll love for lunch.

Just don’t look at the apartment listings over breakfast.

That’s how it starts.