Cabazon, California. It's not what you might first think of when you think of California, but to me, there could be no other place. What lies in Cabazon has been the pressure point of my soul since I was a child. It is, was, and will always for me, represent Arriving in California.
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There is a movie from 1989 called "The Wizard," and it has Fred Savage and Beau Bridges and Christian Slater, but most importantly, it has The Dinosaurs.
There is this moment where a little autistic kid who has run away and hitchhiked across the country finds these Dinosaurs, and recognizes them from a postcard his parents have sent him from California. He starts screaming when he sees them: "Californiaaaa! Californiaaaa!!!!" and flies out of the car. Fred Savage's character looks for him and finds him nestled in the mouth of the T-Rex, holding the postcard. The child was looking for his parents, and thought they'd be there. Instead, his brother finds him and comforts him. Somehow the parents are gone forever- but the child has his brother and that is the important part. It is a sad and poignant moment. That's not the point.
The point is this: visually, aurally, and spiritually, it was burned into my soul the instant I saw that scene: Those Dinosaurs = California
This lasted my whole life. I saw those Dinosaurs again in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, and it just reinforced my beliefs- I would be on my own Big Adventure when I saw these creatures with my own eyes.
Even driving by Dinosaur World, between Orlando and Tampa, I'd always holler "Californiaaaa!" at the giant fiberglass dinosaurs, dreaming of the day I could scream it from a T-Rex's mouth.
And suddenly, we arrived.
Just off the side of the super-highway, there they stand, on an emerald green field.
I nestled at the feet of my God, the T-Rex, and waited for Jay so we could do the WishBone together at this sacred site.
Where beginnings happen. Our Big Adventure.
Kneeling, facing each other, Jay patiently endured while I insisted that we both say out loud what we wished for, so we could be on the same page and wish for the same things.
(It's a WishBone, not a Birthday Candle, so you can say it out loud.)
Once I was certain that we were agreed and on the same wavelength, we snapped the bone.
I have never seen a WishBone snap so evenly through the middle in all my life.
Jays side was slightly larger, but, as the brilliant Meghan Moroney had planned, everyone's a winner! God I love that girl.
The only visitors in the park, we paid $5, blazed though the cheap walk-through exhibits that politely encourage creationism, and made a bee-line for the massive orange T-Rex.
We climbed the spiral staircase inside, and entered the mouth.
I was home.
The wind blows fiercely through the jagged teeth of the beast, stinging my eyes, making them water, and whipping my hair around. From this vantage point, I could see the giant dinosaur gif shop and the highway, and the bluish purple light of the setting sun.
"Californiaaaaa!" I screamed, from my very primal heart and soul: "CALIFORNIAAAAAA!!!!!!"
Jay sat up there with me for a long time. When he was ready to go, I took an extra moment up there and prayed with everything I had to let me remember that feeling for the rest of my life. It was a hopeful, charged, magical moment, and I walked out of that giant fiberglass Dinosaur a stronger person.
I bought a postcard, which I will always keep with me to remind me of where I need to be when I feel lost. And like that child in the movie, I will hopefully realize that What I Need is traveling with me all along.
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