The slow rebuilding process is continuing apace. I'm starting to feel as though I have a skeleton life-plan again, something akin to purpose in this beautiful world. Hit up a San Francisco Dean Meetup, a grand old time. I wrote a couple letters to New Hampshire and then participated in a Dean Media Team video taping session with about 6 other people. It was a little bit forced to start, like any media event, but it was really interesting to see what other people had to say, and good to feel like what I said had some resonance with other people.
I really like the Bay area. NYC comparisons abound, both positive and negative. There's a certain blue-collar bohemianism here, something to do with community and open faces and good cheap friendly food, somthing that is conspicuously lacking in New York City. There's a kind of atmosphere of class consensus betweeen union workers and bike messengers, artists and computer hackers. The cost of rent may be comparable, but you can still get tap beer just about anywhere for two bucks, and that $20 you stick in your wallet can last a couple days. On the other end, San Francisco new money is classier than the NYC nouveau; it's frontier money, pioneers and explorers. You have your white trash, but there's something comforting about that, or at least preferable to meatheads. It seems to be a much more generally progressive place, or maybe that's just my western heritage bias coming through.
There are also a lot more people sleeping on the street here. In absence of a "quality of life" campaign such as Guiliani enacted in his time as Mayor, the fallout of a bad economy and jobless recovery are sharply obvious. The city also seems to largely shut down at midnight. There's still traffic, but Market Street and red-brick sidewalks take on the air of a late-night greyhound station as you make your way to the last BART for the East Bay. If they ran that shit all night long and halved the ticket price, the secondary economic benefits would be enormous, or so I imagine in my internal East Bay - Brooklyn analogy. As it is, the Bay Area mass transit works more like the metro north than the subway. They do have these nice rounded seating areas on the platform though. Much better than benches, more conducive to a friendly underground atmosphere.
So I'm starting to feel good here, at home almost. I remember this vibe from my first visit to the bay, and I do hope this turnaround continues apace. There's naggling doubt hanging around the edges, monsters under my borrowed bed waiting for me to turn out the light, demons of love's labor lost and a lonesome wind in the trees. It's all fuel eventually, but sometimes you can't bite right in. Sometimes all this emotional biomass needs deep-core heat and pressure before it becomes a source of energy. In the lesser days I just remember that this too shall pass, and in the good times I strive for my unconscious connection to the sublime, closing my eyes and feeling the sun on my face.
