Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz is a funky little college town ~ set between giant redwood trees and the deep blue sea ~ on any street corner ~ I can feel the presence of the rest of the place ~ this ordinary looking motel room is the Taj Mahal to me ~ from it, I can hear waves crashing ~ sea lions barking ~ and skateboards clacking ~ I get up in the morning ~ pop a couple Vitamin C ~ drive to Emily’s bakery ~ then go have breakfast in a redwood forest ~ also know as the university ~ but there are no buildings around ~just students shuffling by ~ decked out in comic book fashion ~ mostly anime ~ I ask a girl ~ wearing a skull cap pulled down to her eyes ~ “what’s your field ?” “Uhnnnn whuuoooaaa..?” and I go “Wuzup ~ watcha’ studyin’ ?” “environmentology and urban social policy” ~ I go “cool” ~ and she goes “ ’chu ..?” ~ I say “I have no clue “ and she says ~ “kewl” ~ and I remember when I was in school ~ we all wanted to look like Caine ~ or Daniel Boone ~ I follow a trail ~ and over a bridge ~ to the library ~ where they have fully loaded workstations ~ with lightening speed Internet connections ~ I go to the fourth floor ~ dump my stuff on a desk ~ open a window where I can sit ~ and spit sunflower seeds ~ hitting the trunks of redwood trees ~ afterwards, I start posting my Esalen journal ~ and checking out the local club scene ~ feeling like a monk who just escaped the monastery ~ maybe I’ll go see ‘Hell’s Belles’ ~ an all-girl band that does covers of AC DC ~ maybe I’ll go see the film ‘Into the Wild’ or ‘Gone baby Gone’ ~ or maybe just walk down the street and watch the Halloween revelry ~ later, at Book Shop Santa Cruz, I feel like buying every book I see ~ can’t say the same at a Borders or Barnes ‘n Noble ~ there’s a book on music appreciation ~ by a neuroscientist who used to be the sound man for Grateful Dead ~ another book says political conservatives think in a highly ‘structured and persistent’ manner ~ liberals, on the other hand, are more receptive to ‘informational complexity’ ~ ambiguity ~ and novelty ~ I leave with a book of poems by Mary Oliver.