Last night I sat down to a Passover Seder - a traditional celebration of redemption from slavery to the land of milk and honey. The plate included matzo; salty water, representing tears; charoses, a paste made from almonds and apples representing mortar used in construction of the Pyramids; and a small child wondering: "is that all I'm going to get to eat?"
Too many archetypes of the Passover story are being relived in California right now.
We're overplanting almonds and stealing our groundwater to build empires for other people - hedge fund almonds. Would-be-Pharaohs like Kevin McCarthy think the answer is yet more massive infrastructure, dams that can only be filled if snow falls and melts.
We stare at an ocean of salty water wondering why isn't desalination the answer to all of our water woes? We can remove the salt from seawater only by sacrificing on pricey altars and grinding into dust our renewable energy plans and visiting a plague of excessively briny water on the coast that we love.
Climate scientists prophesy: our megadrought desert is going to last 40 years. Or forever.
As for that land of milk and honey? - cow fodder is a thirsty crop, the bees are being killed by pesticides, and right now the shimmering promise of redemption is just a mirage.
I'd cry for my golden state but I dare not waste the tears.