Moving, and a feeling of possibility from Americans by risa
In September 2001 I got back from a summer in Toronto, where I’d been living on my own for the first time, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was another move I needed to do next. One more step out of my parents bright, cozy and too-quiet suburban home.
I spent the day in galleries, trying to get closer to the feeling I was looking for, and then as the fall light faded I went looking for this friend I’d known a bit the year before, and who always seemed to manage this air of entirely new possibilities. Dave was an American, most directly from Tennessee and one year of Navy training, living in a sweet corner apartment near McGill, in Montreal, and allowing himself to fall in love with all of it.
I found Dave at home, but he was on his way to a dinner at a friend’s house, and he invited me along, so I went. The two gentlemen we visted lived in a friendly chaos that felt just like my own life, and they were funny, and they went surfing, sailing, rockclimbing and you could ride the longboards down the hall: all things which ring ‘money’ and ‘annoying’ when you hear them listed off like that, but that you secretly long to try, and get good at, because your bones recognize that there would be something strangely spiritual in the rush.
Luke and Charlie has a small spare room, with a window that looked out on a brick wall, and they offered it to me for 100 dollars, and I moved in that weekend. My parents even helped me, they were that brave. We only lived together for one year, but it felt like ten of us lived in there, and talked about writing and travel inbetween drunken frat-boy type bouts. It was lovely and just long enough, though I do have waves of missing them and the whole life I didn’t lead yet, and we all exchange lovely letters. These old letters offer such honest and interesting glimpses into other worlds that I share them here, and today I got a new one, this time from Luke out in San Francisco…
risa
It has been so kind to hear from you all in your respective
corners of the world. All of your adventures sound amazing
and keep me going through the day-to-day boredom of life in
America. I recently had a revelation about the importance
of keeping in touch with friends, so here I am with an
update for you on my life in Northern California.
I’ve been around San Francisco bay since late March. The
drive cross-country was an excellent period of meditation,
backed up by techno and campstove-made gourmet coffee, the
only way to clear Iowa safely in my opinion. Snide remarks
were made about my surfboards in Nebraska, and I
encountered two blizzards in Nevada. A righteous trip of
solitude and reflection overall.
Since arrival I’ve been teaching sailing to random
well-to-do folks from all around the country and world.
San Francisco bay is now one of my favorite places to sail
in the world. Between the bridges, the city, the local
mountains, and the “wind machine”, she never fails to
amaze. Not the most socially responsible work, but it is
hard to imagine not being outside anymore. Pounding along
under the Golden Gate and sunny skies with a reef in and
the rail buried has yet to disappoint any of my clients,
or me for that matter.
For a couple months now I have been living in the San
Francisco with my cousin. As I sit in this art gallery
cafe listening to some great free live music, I realize
this city charms me deeply enough to nearly hold me.
The N train runs underground through the heavily urbanized
sections of the city, then surfaces about halfway across
the peninsula on its way to the end of the line at Ocean
Beach. It crosses the San Andreas fault and from the sunny
side to the foggy wind-battered outer neighborhoods, where
I live.
A few days ago, an afternoon nap evaded me, so I rambled
downhill to my corner cafe where I chatted politics and
women with a typically very intelligent homeless San
Franciscan. A couple of steaming dark roasts were able to
shake the listlessness, so I hopped the N to catch the
sunset over the Pacific.
Surfers call Ocean Beach OB, and it really is the end of
the line. It is where the power of Southwest groundswells
from typhoons in the South Pacific and Northwest
groundswells from massive storms near the Alaskan Aleutian
islands explode onto the shores of this major city. It is
known for its exposure and unforgivingness and its density
of local wildlife including a great white shark population.
After the first submersion the cold North Pacific seems to
go directly into your bloodstream. Paddling out is a
departure from the city to the wilderness. The wave is
fast, heavy, unpredictable, and shallow here. The rip
currents are extremely powerful at this spot, and often
your board will just lose buoyancy after having been caught
in some gnarly downdraft. How far down will she take you?
You have ceded all control. Respect is ultimate.
Waking at 5 am to catch the first of a new swell. Driving
to the beach in the dark and fog. This is ridiculous but
you cannot stop. The cold water is a rapturous flight into
an ecstasy of terror, and celebration of the extreme
vitality and beauty of life.
So I stood on the dunes at the end of the line, looking out
over OB across the Pacific to where the orb of the sun
slowly dipped below the horizon. The wind was blowing
heavily onshore. Bad for surfing but creating beautiful
waves in the sand covering human footprints and making the
dunegrass, golden in the sunset light, perform a wild
dance. When the big one comes will sand cover man’s
footprint here as Katrina reclaimed New Orleans with water?
Having Davey local working crush up in the vinelands has
been so good. Together we have been able to penetrate deep
into the ultimate spiritual and aesthetic juxtaposition to
the sea - the high mountains. Watching a crazy full red
moon rise just after the sunset from our basecamp at 10,000
feet at the foot of a glaciated stratavolcano was surreal.
More recently we nearly froze to death on a late season 6
pitch trad climb up Cathedral peak in Yosemite… frigid
white granite! Bleeding hands, bleary eyes, loss of finger
feeling, unimportant thoughts… gone. We always knew the
mountains were unforgiving but we learned again, a hard
lesson.
So that is what I have been up to. I have omitted many
other great stories, I am sure you have too. There are a
couple about live music in the impossibly hip neighborhoods
of San Francisco but you’ll have to come to Mexico to hear
those.
In a few weeks I’ll be moving South of the border for the
winter. The flip-flops remain but I am trading in my
t-shirt for a big straw hat.
You are all cordially invited to visit. I plan on setting
up quite a base camp and will have access to all manner of
land and sea based vehicles.
Mexico City has a giant coliseum where they host
bullfights. New Years in the capitol?
I hope this finds you all healthy and happy.
All the best,
Luke
October 12th, 2005 at 10:36 am
risa,
sadly, most sadly you forgot to mention the most zen and sensual of all of the bourgeois physical pursuits we have and always will seek.
the beauty and movement of moving over snow with boards strapped to your feet and the lack of air from pushing through tight trees and snowy groves all while hearing burts of howling, a sign of the clan, ringing through the trees.
October 12th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
Hmm, the clan eh?
I know what you mean, and you didn’t mean like ‘the clan’, just the happy gang you’re with when barreling down through those snow covered trees.
PS- Don’t be mad that I said that that list of sporty activities ring “money” and “annoying”- that’s about how they sound in some ears, not about how they are.
We all have activities we love because of how they feel, and because of how they bring us closer to other people, and mostly they look and sound different from the outside. Religion, for example brings a lot of joy and peace to a lot of people’s lives, and, usually, costs nothing to be a part of, so that’s good, but from the outside it can seem culty (clanish even) and can be used to justify all kinds of cruel behavior. Skiing may be a little financially exclusive (and sailing even more so) but at least it doesn’t come tied up with an explicit ideology. Plus it’s ridiculously fun.
Oh man, it’s cold today and I wish I was in Cali surfing.