Static Santa Cruz

The Admiral has suggested another ten days in Santa Cruz. She has a biblical number of friends with whom to spend time, one begatting another in a circuit of book clubs (The Lost Man, an Australian thriller on audio), lawyerly friends and college buddies as well as cousins and aunts and so forth scattered around the San Francisco area in a wide arc. All of which gives me (and Rusty) time alone to walk and contemplate the meaning of life, a not inconsiderable feat for a small brown dog visiting the Golden State for the first time.

I miss the sound of laughter and I know that is an odd way to view the town of my former residence, but Joe picked up on what I was saying to my surprise. He thinks it has to do with the absurd cost of living causing seriousness to blanket the city.

I don’t think so, I think it is much more a matter of being cool and hip. I am terrible at being up to speed on fads and fashions of the day but I do notice expensive cars everywhere and simplistic slogans littering the scenery. I have never seen so many Teslas or their chargers all in one place, and I could only get half of them in the frame.  

Everyone else drives Audis and Subarus and the first question our van life generates among our properly housed friends is how many miles do we get to the gallon. I don’t know if 15 (inflated to 17 by my wife) sounds eco-awful but by accident our ecological footprint is pretty tiny compared to house dwellers and commuters so burning dead dinosaurs to get around seems incidental to me. And if it isn’t I’m not that concerned. A nomadic life is what I live for right now. 

There is an overarching sense of wagging fingers in this bubble of supreme self awareness. A friend told us how sometimes she forgets to bring her reusable water bottle on her commute and if she feels compelled to buy a plastic bottle she sneaks it into work and hides it at her desk from potential frowns of eco-disapproval. That sort of social disapproval  may be why smiles and belly laughs are in short supply on the streets. Never mind simple eye contact and a good morning. 

Then there is our friend the art teacher who got called into the principal’s office for saying to her class: “C’mon guys, let’s go out into the playground,” to a roomful of future Rembrandts in the Catholic school where she works. Apparently she offended non guys in her pre-teen classroom who reported her gender faux pas in an act of Orwellian conformity. They/them  has replaced he/she as the language continues to get mangled among children caught in the culture wars. 

To stand against hate seems a universal sentiment except perhaps among Proud Boys and other fringe lunatics and as such it is an empty expression of purposeful earnestness. Everyone stands against hate in general except here smokers for instance are not included. We can all hate smokers according to the sign. United against hate: with exceptions. 

Worse than the pious meaningless earnestness is the blandness of life in Santa Cruz as presented to the casual passerby. The town I remember as brash and colorful and filled with art and life and personality has been turned into an inward looking place that presents conformity as a virtue. 

Evolution requires change and I suppose a town that sells mobile homes for $400,000 and talks of home prices in terms of single digits must attract the rather dull people devoted to mammon sufficiently to be able to afford a house worth one point four. (Million). You don’t buy a house in Santa Cruz by being quirky. 

Key West isn’t immune to this drive to boring conformity and I’ve watched the squeeze from up close. I haven’t been back to Santa Cruz in ten years and the transformation slaps me in the face. I find myself suspended between communities.  

I walk around with a camera and I see nothing of interest. On the one hand I see busy efficiency and on the other drifting homelessness. 

To be boring is the worst indictment I can make of a formerly lively place of residence. I can’t wait to get on the road and see more places and have my breath taken away by beauty and challenge and interest. 

Am I missing something or are there really more than two genders? I have lost all interest in the culture wars that define politics in our country that seems hell bent on self destruction. But common usage, grammar and communication still impress their value on me as a traveler who claims membership in the human race. Rusty has more critical thinking going on in his little dog brain than most of my neighbors some of whom would rather win an election they lost by force of arms while the other lot are trying to redefine language to mean nothing at all. 

In the middle of it all I am happier than ever to haul my life around in my car to duck and weave and evade the weirdness and madness of common sense unraveling in front of my very eyes. The town I grew up in, the town I made a middle aged life in are both vanishing awash in mediocrity. I am growing old and inward looking. I am following the arc of life and getting annoyed by the youngsters trampling the lawns of my nostalgia. 

It will take more than a mask to keep us safe though a mask would be a good start. Painting Black Lives Matter on the street in front of city hall enraged some youngsters who have been arrested for defacing the sentiment by burning rubber over it.  

If black lives did matter the slogan would be unnecessary. If gender didn’t matter no one would make themselves crazy trying to obliterate it. We seem to have lost the fundamentals of good sense decent mindedness and tolerance. The result is madness. I want to get out of here. Start the engine, I need to drive somewhere else. The past is making me grumpy.