Santa Cruz

The floors where Terry lives slope either one way or the other ...and the doors don’t sit right … cold air rushes in at night. “It used to be a surfboard shed” she says “but I don’t complain, the rent is cheap and I can hear  sea-lions barking.” We’re eating cereal and drinking licorice tea on the wooden porch in front of the house that's in front of the shed where she lives. I see surfers covered with tattoos staring at us from across the street. Terry tells me to ignore them ...they’re usually tweaked. Say’s her neighbor Julie’s probably been bad-mouthing her again. I ask about her mother. “She's relentless …keeps tellin’ me I dress in skid-row fashion …going out to dinner is slow torture …she keeps bitching ‘bout the way I eat …says I got absorption problems ...probably not getting enough lithium in my diet or something.” I laugh and say “You mean calcium?” She goes “Yeah, that could be it ...kinda’ hard to tell when I stop listening.” I tell her lithium is a mood-stabilizer. She goes: “It’s probably lithium then ...” and we laugh. Later we go see Juanita who makes killer quesadillas and appreciates it when Terry tutors her kids.

milky way

above Santa Cruz California

out of bounds

In the language of the Huron Indians, “orenda” is a word that refers to the spiritual power that resides in all creatures and things. If you’ve got enough of it, you may be able to declare at least partial independence from your own past. You can better shape the life you want rather than being subject to the limitations of karma and conditioning. When I was visiting Santa Cruz a few years ago I met a guy named Charlie. Last time I was there I asked my friends about him. They said he wandered away and moved to a small town at the edge of the Mojave Desert. He liked living at the fringes of space they told me. Gave him a sense of being outside the boundaries of fate. Made me wonder how much orenda that takes.

Arana Gulch

Santa Cruz,  California  ~  Coral Fish reporting from the field (or from a tree)

Santa Cruz

Almost Halloween on Pacific Avenue

Santa Cruz

Street musicians on Pacific Avenue

Santa Cruz

Overlooking Santa Cruz and Monterey Bay ..from the dorms

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.

Never never land

I walk aimlessly through the streets of Santa Cruz .. a sleepy little northern town nestled between giant redwood trees and the deep blue sea ..I enter Lorenzo woods and hear a mountain side of pine trees hum and sing ..the pine needles bend sun rays that burst into colored light at my visual receptor sites ..I can see the lights of a fairy camp coming from the river banks ..reminds me what a mystical space I’m in ..back on Pacific Avenue there are lots of bicycles, Birkenstocks, paisley covered halter tops and surf board shops ..even this ordinary motel room looks like the Taj Mahal to me ..and I think I see ..in the waves behind my eye lids ..where never-never land might be..