Dottie photo

Dottie photo

Monday, October 21, 2013

Free Write Monday

A favorite exercise of mine has always been free writing. A technique intended to warm up the writer, with the intention of revealing sudden raw, in-the-moment thoughts. It is almost a sort of therapy. The only rule is that there is continuous writing throughout without going back to make changes, usually resulting in a multitude of forward-moving directions with no regard for structure. I will admit, that vanity insists I run the spelling/grammar check before posting, but I am abiding by the rules of continuous motion and I am happy for doing so. The truth is I am completely out of practice. I have not been writing as much as I had in the past. I feel tapped out and uninspired. I will be happy to sit in my chair and prattle off anything at all, virtually venting in the process. This is not to say that I have anything in particular to vent. My life may be in a temporary limbo, but it is actually quite good. I am looking forward to the actual transition into fall. I wanted to write a piece on autumn, but eighty-degree, sunny days have done nothing to inspire my actual feelings of the fall season. The leaves may be falling and the air may be crisp in other parts of America, but here in Southern California, for the time being, the heat compliments the palm trees. However, a couple of Thursdays ago, I did get a glimpse of what is in store. It had rained parts of the day and rained a lot the night before; the skies were gray and moist with a weakened sun, and a tiny bit of crisp wind here and there. It was a hopeful night realizing that the city would be transitioning into a completely different vibe, as seasons do. I excitedly went out, stocked up on candles and incense and dragged all the comforters out of the closet. However, since that one evening, it has been hot and bright sunny every day. The way it is looking, it is going to continue being warm and sunny for quite some time. Mind you, I am not complaining. I consider myself incredibly lucky to be living in Southern California; I was simply fixed on the coming of a season toned with dreary melancholy, with undertones of physical and emotional inwardness. It sounds a little dark, but the very fabric of fall is life in a sort of suspended animation, our own development in a slow or dormant state. Nothing is thriving, but nothing is extinct either. It is in this state that a mellow fecundity blossoms before a rebirth of some kind -- significant or minor. I suppose I was all ready to be part of a season whose gray melancholy would coincide with my own mental and emotional quiescence. I am not implying that I am silently suffering in a depressive state, but I am approaching the turn of several new chapters in my life and I am definitely feeling the vibe of fall. I like the idea of sorting things out to the sound of rain, nestled in the shy California suburbs, always reluctant of the rain. There is something odd about someone who is not around socially during the summer, but there is nothing out of the ordinary about someone who seems to be contemplative and introverted during the fall and winter seasons. It has been an amazing summer, but this year I am not interested in the perpetual summer. I am ready to embrace any growths of maturity and am ready to find accomplishment and fulfillment within myself. I am eager to bundle up and change with the winds all for the better.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The American Riviera

From a shabby Amtrak Surfliner platform near the Burbank Airport, the early morning anticipation of a train ride to the central coast coupled with anxiety. The trip was the far-off results of a lot of loose talk regarding me moving north up the coast at the end of the year. My mother traveled across the country to accompany me on the day trip that had no specific theme or point of order. Long before the train pulled in to the station, I resigned myself to the circumstance that I was to become a tourist in my own state. I was to travel an hour and forty-five minutes by train with a backpack to join hordes of Europeans in a coastal getaway to Santa Barbara, to contemplate personal and physical reinvention among the palms and sands of the American Riviera. The lure of the Pacific pulled the train west away from the San Fernando Valley through stretches of horse ranches and desolate rocky hill terrain. The train eased into the coastline in Ventura, among harsh rocky shores around Pierpont Bay, drifting alongside beachfront running trails off the beaten path of encampments of recreational vehicles. Merging smoothly alongside one of the most famous coastal-view highways in the world, the high surf of the morning was inspiring the hopes of surfers staking claims along the sand. My train ticket awarded me an unassigned seat with a view of over twenty miles of coastal beauty and personal conversations regarding the directions and decisions facing me. I will always endorse a train ride to anywhere for a day when it is time to finally approach all the major decisions that will have the most bearing in your next chapter.
We arrived conveniently on the beach end of State Street, blocks away from Sterns Wharf. The sea air, the gentle sunshine and the cooling breeze greet you immediately and instinctively you gravitate towards the beach, regardless of what hubbub is occurring in any other direction. With my mother in tow, and with latte in hand, my unconscious wander towards the sailboats led to the Dolphin Fountain at the entrance of the wharf, at the lively intersection of State Street and Cabrillo Boulevard. Stearns Wharf, State Street, Historic La Arcada, Cabrillo Boulevard into Shoreline Drive, Point Conception Lighthouse, Santa Barbara Harbor, the Maritime Museum, the Historic Courthouse, the Historical Museum, the Botanic Garden, the Museum of Art, the Old Mission, the Bird Refuge, the vineyards and wineries and the beautiful beaches and marinas are always the conventional ways to tour Santa Barbara. The only real plan was to explore and discover Santa Barbara by accident. I was pleased with the chance instances I came upon popular points of interest when I did, and not to be doing it alone. Really, I was there in a general appreciation of my own back yard and on a clueless search for a particular vibe, an answer to a question I was not sure how to ask.
I had learned that I was thirteen days early for a festival I had never heard of. Epicure.SB was the upcoming thirty-one day festival running all throughout the month of October. It is a celebration of the area’s best cuisine, libations and cultural events with an estimated one-hundred various events. A city that embraces a month-long festival is the perfect residence for the true urbanite, and the premier destination for those who need a sudden and simplistic escape. I was not going to discover the authenticity of Epicure.SB this time around, but the thoughts of festivals and innovative dining experiences were enough to allow me to capture that romanticized feeling I had hoped I would find there. It was only an eight-hour day in Santa Barbara on an ordinary Thursday, but as I walked the wharf on that not-too-particular weekday in September, I was achieving a hopeful calm. A serenity of sorts splashed against the fears and walls in my mind to the rhythm of the tide washing against the poles, planks and barnacles of the pier below my feet. Escape in simplicity came easily to me. The sailboats and kayaks dancing in the glimmering water gave way to the notion that not all my idealizing was entirely inconceivable.
The smiling faces, the amorous handholding, the jovial posing for cameras and the knickknack shopping of the wharf pushed outwards back towards the retail of State Street and the courtyards of La Arcada through the conveyance of an economical and convenient trolley, accessible -- though not necessary -- at the entrance of Stearns Wharf. After a short distance, we randomly jumped ship around State Street and Figueroa, in what is essentially the heart of downtown, near the Museum of Art and the Historic Courthouse with a 360-degree city view from the clock tower. We would be sticking primarily with downtown and the waterfront; there was no sense in turning a slow-paced, contemplative day at the beach into a frantic rush to see the brochure sites all in an effort to post cookie-cutter photos on Facebook. We perused the glamorous shops and eateries of State Street and the magnificent live fish and turtle fountain of the courtyards. An area saturated with tourism, there was no feeling of urgency or any hectic vibrations, only attempts and successes of people attaining an excitingly romantic and alluring way of life in a famous place where most of the people encountered will reluctantly be saying goodbye.
With the sun preparing to move beyond the Pacific, we followed its lingering light back to the shores as the city adapted to the growing twilight with its own twinkling skyline. We recounted the day on a seaside restaurant patio with swordfish and crab cakes, taking inventory of the pink-peach-champagne-colored sunset and the nose-diving pelicans making last efforts for a meal before nightfall. We arrived at the train station in time to hear the news that we would be departing earlier than scheduled. Boarded and settled in the upper deck of the train, the brightly lit lights of the center aisle and the night sky made mirrors of the train windows, cementing the ideals of reflection and not looking backwards. I had found calm and focus, obscurity and dignity, aspiration and naivety, closeness and solitude all in one furlough to the American Riviera, whose flamboyant and inspiring shores I am sure to return.