To you, the west coast remains an abstract thing. It doesn’t quite seem real that you live here. For me, San Francisco was too bombastic in its beauty; too overwhelming. For many of us, it’s so surreal — you almost feel as if you’re on a super long vacation, a vacation where you also happen to work and rent an apartment in the process.

And I think many transplants live in that state of being until they have a major event where they don’t go back. And that event, for many, I think is the holiday season.

For me, the decision to stay wasn’t easy. Like many east coasters, I attach a great deal of sentimental value to the holiday season. While family is central in the decision to “go back,” I don’t believe that’s the only reason for our attachment. I think it’s more visceral and emotional than just the people; we enjoy the idea of the holidays in the nostalgic model laid out for us in movies and literature. This is especially true in the northeast, where those images are encapsulated so strongly. A White Christmas. The comfort of a warm house shielding you from frigid air.

But despite the absence of a wintry landscape, I discovered a Christmas in California can be just as meaningful and festive. It also forced me to reimagine the holiday in a new image. For me, that meant living in the moment and trying something new in my new home, rather than spending my time trying to align the time and place with a holiday of the past. I was fortunate enough to spend an incredible weekend in Sonoma county with my brother Adam (@adamjustinlynch), my sister-in-law, and her family, who have really embraced me as one of their own since I moved here a year and a half ago. I was blessed to eat and drink like a king throughout the entire weekend, and I had an incredible time.

By staying home, this isn’t to say I didn’t miss my east coast friends and family — I miss them terribly everyday and mark their visits here and my visits there brightly on the calendar. I especially missed my parents, who were in Maine for Christmas. They gave me truly special Christmases as a child, and  provide me with more support and encouragement everyday than I could ever hope for, and I thought of them throughout much of the day. (But that blow was softened a lot by the fact they’ll be visiting California in February!).

This Christmas was different. Not necessarily better or worse than past Christmases, but different. I ran through a park in Sonoma that looked over vineyards instead of running next to the icy (but beautiful and raw) Atlantic; I ate California crab instead of a staple honey glazed ham we had in the New Englander Lynch household. This is not to say one of these is better than the other. In fact, they’re both wonderful in their own ways. It was just different. And new.

So my advice to my fellow east-coasters turned westerners: Stay here for the holidays one year to make your living here truly real. Some of you will have it way harder than me. I’m spoiled by the fact I have family on both coasts. But just like your scary decision to move nearly 3,000 miles, make that jump one year and don’t go back; stay home to discover if this is, in fact, home.

You might find it to be a very rewarding decision. I know I did.

/cgl

As Mike’s “about” page sums up, he used to have a t-shirt problem:

“Mike Natenshon started Marine Layer because he couldn’t find new t-shirts that fit and felt like his precious few favorites and his girlfriend was going to dump him if he kept wearing the same 5 tees from college.  It took about a year of trial and error and a heap of credit card debt to get the first shirt made, but it was a beauty.”

So Marine Layer was born, as was an elaborate sizing system to make sure none of us ever had the same problem. I serve as a good use case for Mike’s shirts. I’m tall enough (6’2”) that I necessitate a shirt with the length of an XL, but I’m also a wiry-looking runner, which means that I need the width of a Large, making his “larger” size the perfect match. The shirts are made with American materials, a blend of two yarns called Pima Cotton and MicroModal. The latter comes from recycled Beech Wood. All of the manufacturing processes occur in California.

Aside from the custom sizing and top-quality fabric, the logo is what makes these shirts not just a shirt. The Marine Layer logo is a man who uses the Golden Gate Bridge as a hammock. A leg dangles out of the hammock. Not in a scary or precarious way as if he’ll fall, but with the comfort and ease that would come when relaxing at the entrance and end of one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Will you feel like that every time you put on a Marine Layer shirt? I’m sure Mike hopes so. And he wants people all over the world to wear them, not just here in SF. From what I understand, he’s been doing just that. He and his VP of Everything, Sarah, have been shipping them out left and right.

If you are local, though, you should see the amazing office he’s constructed, equipped with a Shuffle Board table and a fridge of Macrobrews and racks of shirts. The Marine Layer website recently received an impressive overhaul, and can help you find the shirt and size you prefer.

For readers of the Lynch Blog, the first few to contact me can get a discount on their next Marine Layer purchase, as I still have a few friend of the fam discount cards. If you’re looking for a custom run for your company, then drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with Mike and Sarah.

Today, that changes with the launch of the The Lynch Blog. A general name to sum up a general goal: I will share my thoughts on everything that interests me, from business to technology to media to literature to life in San Francisco as a 20-something. This should put me into dangerous territory. If you subscribe to theories that the Web enables a culture of niches, that means a blog ought to be focused and specific.

But I believe, above everything, a blog should be liberating and free from constraints, something I couldn’t always say during my days in traditional media. A blog should also be innately social, connecting me and my thoughts with those of friends, colleagues, customers and everyone else I interact with in life — whether it’s virtually or in person. This space is for them as much as it is for me.

As some of you know, I recently began working at Socialtext, where I’m helping with our communications and marketing efforts. We provide companies with social technologies that make it easier for people to share information and expertise with each other. In bettering their connections internally, we believe it makes them stronger organizations that can serve all of us better (and faster) with their products and services.

I will improve this blog as soon as I have time (specifically, I plan to add more social features). But as someone who has an affinity for writing prose — some polished, some rushed and sloppy — I’d go crazy waiting another day.

So as the hackneyed expression goes, Hello, World.