No act shouts Heading East as much as our imminent trip to Vermont to take Hannah to college. It truly speaks to the feeling that I have of living on the western edge of the continent with a longing to go east, where something more is happening, or where nothing much is happening, but to a place where one can feel grounded. Some days, it wouldn't surprise me if an earthquake caused all of California to break off from the rest of the continent and drop away into the ocean, like a massive ice chunk breaking free of the polar cap. The farther east my children go, the more I feel the tug to go back there, the more San Diego feels like it is drifting into the sea.