Across the Valley, what the Miwoks thought of as the world’s backbone; they called it Petaluma.

Change.

Every time someone asks me if I miss being a professor, I say yes. No one ever asks me if I miss working at Jack in the Box, but if they did, I’d say yes — it was my all-time favorite job.

If I could row upstream in this river of time, I would. I even miss working at the Shell Station at the Treat and Geary off ramp.

And every time someone asks me if I miss Petaluma, I’ll say yes.

I grew up in the Bay Area, 5th generation, and, one day in 1989, stuck in traffic, I decided that it was too crowded, too expensive, too competitive, too frustrating. I wanted a place where I could afford a house. Why shouldn’t my kid have a dog? I didn’t see any way that it could happen here, so I left.

I guess that I had to leave to understand what makes California magic: day after day of clear skies, sunshine, weather in the 70s; long foggy beaches; people who tolerate others more than most, at least, more than in the places where I ended up; mountains as high as any you’re likely to find along with smaller, gentler mountains like Diablo, Tamalpais; world-class cities, not those pretend urban centers that empty every weekend, real cities, like cool, tough Oakland, fast-moving, ultra-competitive high tech mecca that is San Jose, and at the gem that sits at the Golden Gate. I think I like the rolling hills the best, dotted with oak trees and bay laurels, have you ever smelled the wind through that flaxen grass on a warm summer day? Intoxicating.

Of course, what I see as the magic of California is really the magic of Home. That special place where you belong.

And here I am, leaving again.

The thought brings me back to that time, now 17 years upstream, that my daughter and I drove across the Arizona-California border. It was raining in Arizona, and I could see a rainbow in the rearview. I stopped the big yellow truck on the side of the freeway, got out, and looked back. I told Heather, “Check it out! We’re somewhere over the rainbow.” You can imagine the eye-roll I got in reply.

Yeah, it startles me, and I wonder why Karen and I, Dear Abby and Inspector Gelert, are leaving Northern California, this spot in Sonoma County just north of the Marin border 35 minutes from the Golden Gate Bridge — the best ride this side of Disneyland; within view, on a clear day, of Mount Diablo where I can still see my childhood; a ten minute walk to the Mystic Theatre, which feels like the center of the universe; 45 minutes to Point Reyes, my favorite place in the world; and this house where Karen and I found paradise, and my dogs have lived and died. I never loved a place more.

Why leave?

There’s no good reason. Or maybe it’s the best reason.

You’ve might have heard me say, “Paradise is easier to find than it is to recognize.” Those words haunt me enough that I’m pretty good at seeing paradise when I get there. Here. But there’s a funny thing about people and paradise: people tend to cling to the place even after the paradise has moved on. I think it’s better to move on before paradise moves on without me.

It startles me the way we’re startled when the bars on the roller coaster come down and the chain jerks the ride into motion.

And away we go.

Ashland Oregon, that gem in the Rogue River Valley, just north of the California border, built around a natural spring of lithium-fortified health water, a college town, a tourist town famous for its theaters and Shakespeare festival.

The day we arrived in Petaluma, I walked into town and felt it: paradise with 150-year-old iron-faced buildings. I still feel it these years later, now worn in and comfortable. I don’t notice when the bar comes down anymore. My dogs and I have walked every street. I’ve sampled every beer, seen every band, and found myself next to wonderful companions, like you.

Karen and I have talked about moving to Ashland for years. We’ve looked at houses and agreed that we wouldn’t move unless we somehow, against all odds, could find a place as good as this one where I can see across the Valley to what the Miwoks called the world’s backbone. It shows up on maps as Sonoma Mountain, but they called it Petaluma.

Ashland was a daydream. Find a better place than this paradise in a purple house? You kiddin’ me?

Professor Buckley died one day in November. Under the weather one morning, he up and died that afternoon. Dogs have a way of becoming part of a house, no less than the beams that hold it together, dogs make it their own. Without him checking every corner each night before bed, starting every morning certain that this would be the best day of all, spending every day napping in sunny spots and shady spots — without him perched on his barking rock, our world tilted a bit. Months later, Inspector Gelert moved in; an orange and white puppy named after a Welsh hero and sired by Buddy, a Petaluma icon.

Days later, Karen found a purple house in Ashland.

“Can I walk to Bowman Theater in the time that it takes me to walk to the Mystic Theatre?” She nodded. “Is it as nice of a walk?” Nodded again. “Grand trees? Old houses? Rustic?” More nodding. I harrumphed. She took me to the house, and we walked to Lithia Spring, and I felt it. Excited and startled and ready for the bar to come down.

But when you leave paradise, how can you be sure that you’ll find another?

The only think you know for sure is that, when the bar comes down, you’re in for a ride.