January 9, 2002

• I’m in Oakland, California, at the moment.
  
  Being here and wandering around with M- reminds me what I hate about the Bay Area: Density. There’s no escape. You know that oft-cited science experiment where they put a dozen primates in the space normally occupied by one, and then the primates suffered ill health and psychosis? You know that one? Well, that’s the Bay Area. Humans will endure that kind of stuff just so they can live near a pretty view of a city across some water.
  
  The point of this ‘blog is that earlier today I went with M- to Point Reyes National Seashore. It’s a very remote place. It puts the ‘lone’ back in ‘alone.’ The ‘tude’ back in ‘solitude.’
  
  We drove across the Richmond bridge, waved at Charles Manson in San Quentin (look at a map), and proceeded down the Sir Francis Drake Highway to its terminus at the ocean. It’s the road that bisects Marin county. It goes through some of the most expensive bedroom communities in the region, through some lovely verdant valleys, through relatively old-growth redwoods (the area was heavily logged up until the 50s), along the San Andreas fault line for a short while, along the western side of an inlet called Inverness, and all the way across more windswept moors to…
  
  The Edge Of The World
  
  It was foggy and the lighthouse was closed, but we went to the craggy point where it stands. We couldn’t see the ocean 400 feet down below, but we could hear it. The tide was coming in, and surges pushed against the rocks. We took a tiny hike. I took pictures, which will make their way here soon. M- stood on the topmost rock he could find and, well, it’s like this.
  
  There’s a thing in the world. I don’t really know what it is or how it works, though I’m aware of many people who claim to know just that. I’d rather claim ignorance, even though I’ve been observing it for a while. This thing isn’t really a thing, but that’s the easiest way to talk about it, so we call it a thing.
  
  It’s a thing that ‘lives’ in places where elements meet. Water, wind and earth, in this case. It flows out of the briney deep, which is where all life comes from. It’s pushed up the cliffs, sure as the high pressure zone on the windward side of a hill. If you’ve ever seen a hawk hovering above a hill, you know what I’m talking about. Only it’s not wind, it’s something.. else.
  
  M- used it to make the fog dissipate a little bit. He’s one of those people who can do stuff like that. I pulled a bunch of it in, too, because I can do that. Ahhhhh.
  
  We saw the rocks below, the ocean pulsing over it, the foam, through the break in the fog. We even saw a little bit of the sunset.
  
  Driving home through the fog listening to Billie Holiday and techno music. Cross back over the Richmond bridge. Get back to the house and realize how exhausted we are. How completely cut off from whatever it is that flows up out of the ocean.
  
  We were shakti-deprived.
  
  Sigh. Now I’m again entertaining the notion of living in the less expensive part of Marin county. Will I ever learn?

  • 4:58 am
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