Simone Rudolf-dib

On Feb. 12, 2013, I Instagrammed a poorly filtered picture of Doe Library and the Campanile with the caption “#home.” I know this for two reasons: One, because I am a Millennial who is far too aware of her presence on social media, and two, because I think I’ll always remember the feeling I had when I took that picture more than three years ago.

There’s a stretch of highway reaching through the Santa Cruz mountains down to the coast that I find myself returning to each summer like clockwork. California Highway 9 winds through redwood forests and hugs steep drops into the San Lorenzo Valley, spanning a number of miles leading through tiny towns and campsites into downtown Santa Cruz and the vast expanse of the Pacific.

I’ve always thought of “forthcoming” and “forthright” as two commonly mistaken words with two very different meanings.