For the last week, I have been following the progress of the Thomas Fire in southern California as it approaches the city of Santa Barbara, the place I recently moved away from. This is the fire that killed firefighter Cory Iverson, though that didn't happen near SB.

I awoke yesterday morning to the news that, due to strong winds, the fire had spread west in the mountains to a place called Parma Park. This is about a mile from the place I lived before I moved away. Somberly, I realized that if the fire had reached that point, and the winds continued to be unfavorable, there really wasn't anything to stop the fire from spreading down into the city and doing some real damage. The foothills above the city have been evacuated; most of downtown Santa Barbara is currently under voluntary evacuation.

I had been meaning to make a pilgrimage down to the city for the past few months. Yesterday, I figured the time had come to follow through on that, since it seemed quite possible that the city might be ravaged by flame.

So, yesterday, I did what I do best, true to my non-conformist nature: as everyone else fled the city, I booked a hotel room in the city and drove down for a visit.

I arrived shortly after dusk, and sure enough, the flames were dancing on the mountains. It was almost impossible to even see the mountains, since the air was so heavy with smoke.

Downtown Santa Barbara, yesterday evening was incredibly eerie. It is a sleepy town late at night, to be sure, but yesterday evening, the entire city was deserted. Paseo Neuvo, the outdoor shopping mall that is always bristling with activity, was completely empty, save for the two security guards walking around. Not a single business had its doors open. It was difficult to believe that downtown could be that lifeless on a Saturday evening this close to Christmas.

So why did I want to visit Santa Barbara, even in the midst of a heavy blanket of smoke and the threat of wildfire? In a word: closure. I remember moving out to Santa Barbara from Detroit about ten years ago. I moved out to take a new job, taking a chance on both a new career and a new state of residence in one fell swoop. My girlfriend at the time and I didn't plan very much; we packed up a car with the essentials, got rid of everything else, and drove across the country.

All told, things went very well. I remember being amazed at the culture Santa Barbara had to offer. The weather was perfect all year round, traffic was a dream compared to Detroit, and everyone seemed extremely friendly. All of this in stark contrast, of course, to the surroundings I had just moved away from.

More than that, it was a fresh start after an intensely rough patch in my life back in Detroit.

Despite settling in comfortably rather quickly, I didn't feel at home in the city for a long time. It felt like I was on an extended vacation, and the life that I had left behind was still waiting for me. There was a beach close by. There were mountains. The architecture in the city was amazing; even the McDonald's on State Street looked like it had been designed by one of the Spanish friars that resided in the Mission. In the back of my mind, I couldn't shake the feeling of imposter syndrome: I didn't belong in a beautiful California beach community.

That changed about a year in. We flew back to Detroit for a wedding, where I saw lots of family and some old friends. It struck me at that point: Detroit no longer felt anything like home. Somehow, it was all so different than I remembered it. Nothing had changed but me; at some point in the last year, some point I couldn't put my finger on, Santa Barbara had become home, and Detroit had just become part of my past.

I returned to California with a renewed sense of vigor. It was time to start living life out west. I left Santa Barbara just under two years ago. I departed in an emotional state that you could most certainly label as duress. I passed back through it a couple of times a few months later, but I kept my head down and got through as quickly as I could, without reflecting. The wounds were still too fresh for me to face the city head on.

I've been busy up in the Bay Area since landing here about a year ago. Despite that, Santa Barbara and the life I left behind continued to gnaw away at me, much in the way Detroit had when I first moved to Santa Barbara. I don't romanticize the past as much as I used to in my younger days, and I know that, when I left, I was glad to be leaving and moving on to other things. After spending the better part of a decade there, I felt I had done everything I could.

Still.

So, I had to visit. I considered the possibility that I would get to the city and immediately be moved to tears by unbearable nostalgia. Home is where the heart is, and I've spent the time since I moved away imbibed with a kind of numb indifference towards my own existence. Perhaps I just miss the place I used to call home.

This didn't happen. Instead, when I arrived, I started walking around downtown, and immediately started to feel as though I couldn't breathe. (Okay, that might have been the smoke from the wildfires burning a few miles away.) I remembered why I had been happy to leave in the first place: after so long in such a small town, I remembered feeling smothered by the place. I had explored every inch of the city, overturned almost every rock I cared to pick up, and found every nook and cranny you could find.

My spirit of adventure might not carry me to exotic new places with great frequency, but I do crave novelty. I have a hunger for the unexpected, for a few twists and turns that fall outside of my habituation. Feeling a little emotionally nauseated, and choking on smoke, I started to do a miniature bar crawl. Not many bars were open, but enough were open and serving that I got a decent buzz going, and managed to see about four dozen locals. Everyone was wearing respirator masks.

Walking around in the quiet, abandoned dark of the city felt familiar. I spent a lot of time wandering the city at odd hours of the night when I lived there. Time spent trying to find answers, which, in hindsight, I recognize was time wasted since most of the time, I was asking the incorrect questions.

In the light of morning, my feeling about the city was completely different. The hotel I stayed at was completely filled with firefighters who had come from out of town to fight the fire, and me. They awoke early to head up onto the mountain, and so I awoke early as well. I got in my car with the intention of hitting a few old haunts before heading back north. I hadn't driven for even 15 minutes when I realized that wasn't going to happen.

Santa Barbara felt like a foreign city. It was familiar, much in the way Detroit had been to me after my first visit back. But it wasn't home. It was vaguely like visiting a place that you feel you know because you've dreamt about it before, or it's reminiscent of a place you visited in your childhood. Driving around its streets, I suddenly felt as though I had portaled back in time to August 2008 and I was seeing the city for the first time, with fresh eyes.

Paradoxically, the feeling of being smothered, of seeing nothing new or unexpectedly, was stirring in the pit of my stomach the whole time.

When I first moved away, I agonized about getting on the highway and leaving it all behind. I stalled by driving around the city, telling myself that I was letting my fond memories of the place crystallize one last time, getting one last good look at everything for my own personal posterity. This morning, by contrast, I realized that the last thing I wanted to do was spend the morning pussyfooting around. I left the city quickly, without coffee, deciding to stop on the drive back north and get gas later. As the mountains overlooking the city receded into the distance behind me, I didn't even look into the rearview mirror once. I'm sitting back in Palo Alto, the place that I now call home. It doesn't quite feel like home; I don't know if it ever will. I'm wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday night; they are filling my room with the aroma of wildfire. It feels like I dreamed about Santa Barbara last night, and that I didn't actually visit. The only thing to tell me differently is the odor on my clothes.

I do wonder how long I'll stay here in Silicon Valley, and when I finally choose to leave, where I'll go next. This feeling is nothing new for me.

Santa Barbara and I are not done, just as Detroit and I are not done. The place will always occupy a special place in my memory, just as any time or place in your life that has such a big hand in shaping who you are typically does. There's a little Gatsby in us all; it's difficult to completely quell the allure of the green light. But for the time being, even though I'm not sure where I am headed, I now know, resolutely, that I am not headed back there.

Be well, Santa Barbara. Till we meet again. I hope that you don't burn down in the meantime.