Sometimes people ask me why I moved to Austin. Sometimes I answer “Why not?” and leave it at that. Some other times I launch into an explanation of how I’ve really been living in the Bay Area my entire life and how I needed a change and how Austin has a great music scene, etc., etc. Then people usually respond by mentioning that they are hearing more and more about how so many people are flooding into Austin these days.
I usually don’t say anything after that, but I’ll let you in on a secret: that is the real reason I moved here. It’s always uncool to admit to being a follower, especially in a culture that so encourages children to be individuals and cherish their unique idiosyncrasies, but the simple fact is that I moved here because everyone else is moving here.
I could throw out clichés about how Austin is a city like no other but that would be trite and boring. And wrong. It’s not unlike any other. In fact, it’s actually very like other cities. Sure, drinks are cheaper here and the weather is hotter and for some reason I can’t seem to adapt to the driving style here, but sometimes I forget that I’ve left San Francisco or parts of LA or Portland or parts of New York. That’s the thing, Austin is a trendy city, just like all those other trendy cities, it just happens to have existed fewer years in the role.
The one defining difference I can see is the unashamed hipster status of this fine city. (Though, like any good hipster, Austin would categorically deny any accusations of the sort, and I’m sure a majority of the natives rightfully disapprove of the label as well.) The last time I visited Austin, a friend of mine made an anti-hipster comment and another friend turned and replied with “Get over yourself! Of course you’re a little bit of a hipster, we’re all a little bit hipster. You’re in Austin, you wouldn’t be here if you weren’t a little bit of a hipster.” And how true it is. In Austin there’s a lot of bike riding, green-living, vegan-eating, thrift-store-shopping, artsy-fartsy, politically-progressive, creative intelligent types. Oh, and everyone smokes American Spirits. Just sayin’.
Of course, the word “hipster” is a bit of dirty word in the same way that the Beats of the 50’s probably hated being called beatniks because it was a mainstream label for their very anti-mainstream aesthetic. Not everyone here wears tight pants and a permanent look of superiority and boredom, nor does everyone obsess over appearing studiedly indifferent to their cherished individuality. But individuality is incredibly important here in Austin and it’s actually truly genuine.
Possibly too important. There’s a post over on Hipstercrite that is filled with absolutely delicious ennui. An Austin transplant (as most of us apparently are), she begins to realize that she is “losing [her] individuality in a competition for who was the most unique.” She points out that our generation has the luxury of an overwhelming array of options, and not just in the supermarket. We were raised to believe that we can be anything we want to be, go anywhere we want to go, be with anyone we want to be with. But I think it goes even deeper. Beyond just being raised to believe that we do anything we wanted to, we also live in a culture where we can change that anything whenever we want. Don’t like your major? Change it. Don’t like your job? Quit and do something else. Don’t like your career? Switch. Don’t like your location? Move, it’s easy to do. Don’t like your partner? Get a divorce/separate/break up.
Worse still, many of us young people weren’t brought up with the bootstrap mentality that our grandparents and to some extent, our parents were. Occasionally the message “you can be whoever you want to be” would end with “if you try hard enough,” but more often than not, it didn’t. Or we just got bored and stopped listening half way through. My own mother tried so hard to teach me the importance of hard work and the concept of starting from the bottom and working your way to the top. But I know that I never believed her. I actually remember listening to her one day and thinking “yeah yeah. That's not gonna happen. If I can be anything I want to be, why would I ever choose to fetch coffee as an intern if what I really want to do is be a CEO?” Sure, logically we know that you have to start somewhere, but let’s be honest with ourselves, how many of us believe that this doesn’t really apply to us?
So what with the sensory overload and self-entitled assumption in the place of ambition, we wind up lost in the aisles of the grocery store, trying to figure out which of the thousand types of soap to buy before deciding to buy the one everyone else buys. After all, if everyone else is buying it, at the very least, it must not be bad.
We move to the hip new place because that’s where the opportunities are. That’s where it’s new and exciting and fast enough that we can maybe jump into the surge and skip a few rungs on the ladder to the top. I mean, how many people moved to New York in the early 1900s to become millionaires? How many people moved to LA in the mid-to-late 1900s to become famous? When you’re young and still believe that you can easily achieve your dreams, you want to be where the streets are paved with gold. Sure, most of us end up treading water, but it is a comfort to be surrounded by other people of this lost generation who are also treading water. After all, if they all chose that brand of soap, that city to live in, they can’t all be wrong. (Talk about a mixed bag of metaphors, huh?)
I’ll let you in on another part of my secret. That’s not the whole reason I moved here either. Sure, I want to pick up chunks of gold in the gravel at my feet just as much as the next kid. But it’s not so much that I moved here with the same mentality, it’s that I moved here because of the mentality. I moved here because we’re all moving here. Ariel and I have something in common. We both want to be where the people are. And I’m completely unashamed of that because people (and I don’t know if you know this) are incredibly interesting.
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
No plot and all together too much self-analyzation
I have always liked to do things in such a way that they become Things. I have liked to do things so that they are commemorative, by starting them beginning of a month, or on the hour. I like special dates. 1.11.11 was a fun day, I really wanted to Start Something then. But then I didn't. Each of my 8 piercings commemorates a time, date or event in my life when Things changed. I have liked to make Things into Symbols. Symbols of re-birth or a new beginning or a peaceful end to this phase of my life or that stage of growing up. I like clean slates and I think I try to create them for myself at every possible turn.
In a way, it worked. I mean, I travel so much and have moved around enough, that I can find enough clean slates to make myself happy. Which, of course, means plenty of new places to go and things to see to keep me excited about and writing about.
But lately I've had the hardest time keeping up with myself and all my OCD rules. I stopped blogging when I came back from traveling because I didn't really feel like there was anything interesting to write about. I was back in Berkeley, slogging through my last year of college and too buried in the immature preoccupations of my age group to feel like I had anything in me but whining and pseudo-existential crises (after all, I was submerged in academia, an overdose of high-brow theoretical thinking was bound to happen, and I think the whining comes with the territory as well).
I could have pontificated on the concept of graduating and truly entering a new stage of my life, but I wasn't really finished with my degree, so the only thing I produce on the subject was a weak quip on my bastard graduation (that is, my illegitimate graduation ceremony... I went through the song and dance, but I wasn't really done).
Then I was back in San Francisco. I was having a blast, but San Francisco is home for me. It doesn't feel new or exciting. Once in a while I'd get inspired by some experience at the bar to share it with the world, but never really got around to it.
But more important than my antipathy in the face of gracing the world with my mental ramblings, I pretty much stopped writing full stop. I didn't write in my journal, I wasn't feverishly typing out the weak skeletons of a short story idea, I even quit pretending that I'd eventually be able to write a song if I just practiced enough to get through the initial stage of crap lyrics that some bands try to pawn off on us as legitimate.
See, over a year and a half ago I'd decided that I needed to work on freeing my mind. If I was going to write, I mean REALLY write, I needed to write. Logical, huh? What I mean is that, like writing song lyrics, practice makes perfect. Not every word I put on the page is going to be a diamond. Most of it is going to be coal. And not even substantial hunks of coal, more like spent coal dust. Not that I'm trying to become perfect. It's just that I love words. I love the way they look and the way they sound. They are tinker toys or Legos with infinite combination possibilities. And they MAKE things: ideas, feelings, history, knowledge. I digress, but the point is I love writing. It's what I do. A friend of mine recently responded to my apology for my long-winded stories with "it does take you forever to tell a story. No, it's more like you're writing me a story and then orating it." It was a compliment. At least as far as I'm concerned.
Anyhoozle, I was working on freeing my mind. I stopped writing in my journal on consecutive pages. If I felt like writing two pages ahead, I would. I wrote in patterns and pictures, instead of creating giant left-to-right blocks of words. And that worked for a while. I wrote all the time. It made me feel artsy, and oh-too-cool-for-school.
But eventually I got bored. It was hard work thinking of new ways to free my mind. And every time I opened my journal, I felt like it had to be this big ordeal, I had to have Things to write about or insights into the Things I was writing about. Not to mention a cool new patten in which to write. I had to date everything (you know, in case I die famous and brilliant and they want to publish my journals for the world to benefit from. That's right, I think about that. I'm willing to bet you do too. Don't lie to yourself, you do.).
So I stopped writing in my journal. Sometimes I'd open a Word document out of frustration just to put down some of the stuff that was crowding around in my head. But I would never think of it as legitimate. I didn't date them because they weren't legitimate, they weren't neatly contained in my little black moleskine notebook.
Sometimes at work I'd grab one of those little pads that servers use to take orders down on and jot out an image that I liked, or a feeling that I thought should exist in words or a story idea. I'd take up three or four pages, tear them off and stick them in my back pocket. When I got home they'd end up shoved in my desk or in the pages of one of my notebooks.
Even short phrases I didn't know what to do with. I couldn't write them in my notebook except on the designated page (yes, I felt they had to be organized in my mind-freeing journal) so they'd end up on random pieces of paper and mostly in the notepad on my phone.
And then one day I just shook myself. I decided to that it wasn't worth it. That I DON'T have to organize things into neat little containers. All those random little scribblings are legitimate. They're always fun to read back over and that's what really matters, right? And it isn't worth it to wait for a momentous occasion to start writing again. I moved to Austin almost two weeks ago. I thought that that would be a great time to start writing again. Starting a new phase of my life and all... but I'm sick of trying to find reasons to start things and I'm tired of having to associate Things with Symbols and New Eras. So today, (what day is it again? The dates seem to melt together when one is jobless) randomly on February 23 I've started blogging again.
All this is a very long, drawn-out way of saying "I'm baaaaack!"
In a way, it worked. I mean, I travel so much and have moved around enough, that I can find enough clean slates to make myself happy. Which, of course, means plenty of new places to go and things to see to keep me excited about and writing about.
But lately I've had the hardest time keeping up with myself and all my OCD rules. I stopped blogging when I came back from traveling because I didn't really feel like there was anything interesting to write about. I was back in Berkeley, slogging through my last year of college and too buried in the immature preoccupations of my age group to feel like I had anything in me but whining and pseudo-existential crises (after all, I was submerged in academia, an overdose of high-brow theoretical thinking was bound to happen, and I think the whining comes with the territory as well).
I could have pontificated on the concept of graduating and truly entering a new stage of my life, but I wasn't really finished with my degree, so the only thing I produce on the subject was a weak quip on my bastard graduation (that is, my illegitimate graduation ceremony... I went through the song and dance, but I wasn't really done).
Then I was back in San Francisco. I was having a blast, but San Francisco is home for me. It doesn't feel new or exciting. Once in a while I'd get inspired by some experience at the bar to share it with the world, but never really got around to it.
But more important than my antipathy in the face of gracing the world with my mental ramblings, I pretty much stopped writing full stop. I didn't write in my journal, I wasn't feverishly typing out the weak skeletons of a short story idea, I even quit pretending that I'd eventually be able to write a song if I just practiced enough to get through the initial stage of crap lyrics that some bands try to pawn off on us as legitimate.
See, over a year and a half ago I'd decided that I needed to work on freeing my mind. If I was going to write, I mean REALLY write, I needed to write. Logical, huh? What I mean is that, like writing song lyrics, practice makes perfect. Not every word I put on the page is going to be a diamond. Most of it is going to be coal. And not even substantial hunks of coal, more like spent coal dust. Not that I'm trying to become perfect. It's just that I love words. I love the way they look and the way they sound. They are tinker toys or Legos with infinite combination possibilities. And they MAKE things: ideas, feelings, history, knowledge. I digress, but the point is I love writing. It's what I do. A friend of mine recently responded to my apology for my long-winded stories with "it does take you forever to tell a story. No, it's more like you're writing me a story and then orating it." It was a compliment. At least as far as I'm concerned.
Anyhoozle, I was working on freeing my mind. I stopped writing in my journal on consecutive pages. If I felt like writing two pages ahead, I would. I wrote in patterns and pictures, instead of creating giant left-to-right blocks of words. And that worked for a while. I wrote all the time. It made me feel artsy, and oh-too-cool-for-school.
But eventually I got bored. It was hard work thinking of new ways to free my mind. And every time I opened my journal, I felt like it had to be this big ordeal, I had to have Things to write about or insights into the Things I was writing about. Not to mention a cool new patten in which to write. I had to date everything (you know, in case I die famous and brilliant and they want to publish my journals for the world to benefit from. That's right, I think about that. I'm willing to bet you do too. Don't lie to yourself, you do.).
So I stopped writing in my journal. Sometimes I'd open a Word document out of frustration just to put down some of the stuff that was crowding around in my head. But I would never think of it as legitimate. I didn't date them because they weren't legitimate, they weren't neatly contained in my little black moleskine notebook.
Sometimes at work I'd grab one of those little pads that servers use to take orders down on and jot out an image that I liked, or a feeling that I thought should exist in words or a story idea. I'd take up three or four pages, tear them off and stick them in my back pocket. When I got home they'd end up shoved in my desk or in the pages of one of my notebooks.
Even short phrases I didn't know what to do with. I couldn't write them in my notebook except on the designated page (yes, I felt they had to be organized in my mind-freeing journal) so they'd end up on random pieces of paper and mostly in the notepad on my phone.
And then one day I just shook myself. I decided to that it wasn't worth it. That I DON'T have to organize things into neat little containers. All those random little scribblings are legitimate. They're always fun to read back over and that's what really matters, right? And it isn't worth it to wait for a momentous occasion to start writing again. I moved to Austin almost two weeks ago. I thought that that would be a great time to start writing again. Starting a new phase of my life and all... but I'm sick of trying to find reasons to start things and I'm tired of having to associate Things with Symbols and New Eras. So today, (what day is it again? The dates seem to melt together when one is jobless) randomly on February 23 I've started blogging again.
All this is a very long, drawn-out way of saying "I'm baaaaack!"
Monday, October 4, 2010
Guilty Pleasures
It's happened to everyone once.
You hear a song on the radio or in a store or on a commercial and it sticks there. Not immediately of course, but a few days later you find yourself humming it, or repeating a line or phrase from that song.
"Huh," you think, "that's kinda catchy. Where did that come from?"
You go about your business, generally unperturbed. A few days later you hear it again. You are unconscious of the fact that you recognize the song until just before the end.
"Hey!" you think, "that was it! That was that song! Huh, catchy song."
Later that day you hear it again. This time you catch on quickly and try to remember specific lines of the song to look up later, to put an artist to the song. But you have a short attention span and there is a lot going on in your life. So, naturally, you forget.
But then you start hearing it on the radio more.
"Ah! This song!" you say to yourself sagely, "I know this song." and you smile smugly while humming along.
And then you're into it. You're into this song. You flip through the radio stations, hoping to hear it again.
"What?" you reply defensively, "I kinda like this song."
Now it's started running through your head at odd points in your day. In fact it's running through your head quite a lot. You still don't know the whole song, but whenever you hear it, you stop immediately, even just to catch the last verse.
"Oh man!" you say aloud in the car, "I love this song!" You get so excited when it randomly pops up in your day. If you have the opportunity, you'll belt along in a halting, stumbling manner because this song GETS you! You've finally figured out enough of the lyrics to know that this is YOUR song. The artist didn't know it, but they wrote a song about you, about your life. It's perfect for whatever it is you're going through right now.
Then you realize that it is popping up in your day more and more. You've heard it three times on the radio this morning, once in Starbucks (or whichever local coffee shop you prefer to patronize) and once in the supermarket. Perhaps you are not, as you had thought, the ultra-hip music lover on the pulse of your generation. It's growing popularity is an uncomfortable reminder that everyone else believes that THIS song is THEIR song and that you are but a member of the flock.
This, naturally, makes you uncomfortable.
Maybe you're riding in the car with friends and one of them is running through the radio stations. You hear your song. "Stopstopstop!" you shout. (You may even slap his or her hand away.) Then you sheepishly try to save face, "I like this song."
But your secret shame won't get the better of you at home. You listen to it over and over on youtube. You are probably responsible for 23% of the page hits. Now you know this song in it's entirety and it still speaks to you. You lip-synch to it alone in your room, releasing all the emotion you believe is necessary for said song and punctuating it with air-punches and meaningful looks in the mirror. You imagine yourself in the music video, or set it as the soundtrack to an event in your life that will probably never happen, no matter how much you wish it would.
Sometimes, when you aren't around a radio, computer or any other listening device, you play it in your head. Because that's how well you know it.
Finally, you're tired of praying that it will come on the radio, tired of having to access youtube to listen to it.
"I don't care!" you boldly declare. "I don't care that it is so popular! It speaks to me! I must have it at my disposal for whenever I want to listen to it! It must be able to set the tone for my life whenever I need it to! This is MY song! I WILL buy it on iTunes! And I don't care if my friends judge me because it's SO mainstream and, frankly, kinda shitty."
So you do. With a perverse pride you click "buy it" (for $1.29!) and watch the barber-shop bar march along while the magic of the internet takes your money and magically replaces it with a song. Like the tooth fairy, similarly painful. Then you watch the little arrow next to "downloading" spin around and around and around.
Then it's done. The song is yours. Yours to have and to keep. You possess it. You double-click...
...and suddenly, it's not the same. It's like the song has lost it's shine. It's still... good, and everything, you just... don't really have the desire to listen to it anymore. Oh well. At least now you own it in case you ever do need to listen to it at a moment's notice. Hah. Like that will ever happen.
And that is the cruel irony of the buying radio pop songs.
You hear a song on the radio or in a store or on a commercial and it sticks there. Not immediately of course, but a few days later you find yourself humming it, or repeating a line or phrase from that song.
"Huh," you think, "that's kinda catchy. Where did that come from?"
You go about your business, generally unperturbed. A few days later you hear it again. You are unconscious of the fact that you recognize the song until just before the end.
"Hey!" you think, "that was it! That was that song! Huh, catchy song."
Later that day you hear it again. This time you catch on quickly and try to remember specific lines of the song to look up later, to put an artist to the song. But you have a short attention span and there is a lot going on in your life. So, naturally, you forget.
But then you start hearing it on the radio more.
"Ah! This song!" you say to yourself sagely, "I know this song." and you smile smugly while humming along.
And then you're into it. You're into this song. You flip through the radio stations, hoping to hear it again.
"What?" you reply defensively, "I kinda like this song."
Now it's started running through your head at odd points in your day. In fact it's running through your head quite a lot. You still don't know the whole song, but whenever you hear it, you stop immediately, even just to catch the last verse.
"Oh man!" you say aloud in the car, "I love this song!" You get so excited when it randomly pops up in your day. If you have the opportunity, you'll belt along in a halting, stumbling manner because this song GETS you! You've finally figured out enough of the lyrics to know that this is YOUR song. The artist didn't know it, but they wrote a song about you, about your life. It's perfect for whatever it is you're going through right now.
Then you realize that it is popping up in your day more and more. You've heard it three times on the radio this morning, once in Starbucks (or whichever local coffee shop you prefer to patronize) and once in the supermarket. Perhaps you are not, as you had thought, the ultra-hip music lover on the pulse of your generation. It's growing popularity is an uncomfortable reminder that everyone else believes that THIS song is THEIR song and that you are but a member of the flock.
This, naturally, makes you uncomfortable.
Maybe you're riding in the car with friends and one of them is running through the radio stations. You hear your song. "Stopstopstop!" you shout. (You may even slap his or her hand away.) Then you sheepishly try to save face, "I like this song."
But your secret shame won't get the better of you at home. You listen to it over and over on youtube. You are probably responsible for 23% of the page hits. Now you know this song in it's entirety and it still speaks to you. You lip-synch to it alone in your room, releasing all the emotion you believe is necessary for said song and punctuating it with air-punches and meaningful looks in the mirror. You imagine yourself in the music video, or set it as the soundtrack to an event in your life that will probably never happen, no matter how much you wish it would.
Sometimes, when you aren't around a radio, computer or any other listening device, you play it in your head. Because that's how well you know it.
Finally, you're tired of praying that it will come on the radio, tired of having to access youtube to listen to it.
"I don't care!" you boldly declare. "I don't care that it is so popular! It speaks to me! I must have it at my disposal for whenever I want to listen to it! It must be able to set the tone for my life whenever I need it to! This is MY song! I WILL buy it on iTunes! And I don't care if my friends judge me because it's SO mainstream and, frankly, kinda shitty."
So you do. With a perverse pride you click "buy it" (for $1.29!) and watch the barber-shop bar march along while the magic of the internet takes your money and magically replaces it with a song. Like the tooth fairy, similarly painful. Then you watch the little arrow next to "downloading" spin around and around and around.
Then it's done. The song is yours. Yours to have and to keep. You possess it. You double-click...
...and suddenly, it's not the same. It's like the song has lost it's shine. It's still... good, and everything, you just... don't really have the desire to listen to it anymore. Oh well. At least now you own it in case you ever do need to listen to it at a moment's notice. Hah. Like that will ever happen.
And that is the cruel irony of the buying radio pop songs.
Monday, July 26, 2010
All Growed Up
I have a grown up job. And I love my grown up job.
Bartending is chemistry without the math. It's a creative controlled chaos and an excuse to spend my day chatting with strangers and friends. It's equal parts precision mixing, breezy interaction and cultivated style.
Some mornings I open the bar. Cool San Francisco mornings when the fog hasn't quite rolled back far enough. The streets are busy enough, but inside the bar it's quiet and calm. I like the days that are slow enough to put on the jazz station. Maybe I've been reading too much Dashiell Hammett, but to me that's what a bar should be like in the day time. A little Duke Ellington while I'm polishing the brass beer taps, wiping down the warm lacquered wood, and cutting garnishes for the day. The most steadfast regulars come in the early afternoon, around 3, and that's when I start to put out the bowls of pretzels. I'm almost in tune with their routines. Royal comes in with a magazine, orders an IPA or two and says little. Mary usually comes in with a book for a double of Jameson with a water back and a little conversation. She's easy to talk to and has an easy, infectious laugh. Pat and Mary come in for a bottle of O'Douls non-alcoholic beer and a cosmo (respectively). He looks every inch an Irish fisherman, complete with a round salt-and-pepper beard. Justin comes in for a couple IPAs and, through conversations about travel and world events, reminds me that I majored in economic development to improve the places in the world that most need improvement. Every Friday, like clockwork, old Josef comes in with his two middle-aged sons, Dean and Dev, and I get ready to serve a few rounds of Stella, MGD and Becks. Sometimes they are joined by the rest of the family, a couple of daughters and friends close enough to count as blood, but they always bring the party.
Of course after a few deliciously slow afternoons, I've developed a hankering for a busy night. I can't wait to get into the zone of rush, on a night when everything is going right. Ducking in and out of the bar, slipping through the crowds of people to deliver drinks, or grab clean glassware, spinning glasses and bottles and pouring out a rainbow of colors in to shakers. We ARE the movers and the shakers behind the bar on nights like that, dancing from one end of the bar to the other, working together based on intuition more than communication. And can I help YOU, sir? The blender whirs in the background, seemingly constantly, over the low dim, occasionally relieved by the humming of the refrigerators and the blended margarita machine. Three margaritas, an IPA and an Amber, coming right up! On nights like that, it feels like there are almost as many people lining up around the bar and there are bottles lined up in front of the mirrors and I'm presiding over them expertly, grinning and laughing like a fool, completely high on the pandemonium. Nothing beats the feeling of presenting two perfectly poured pints and a newly shaken jewel of a martini with the crystals dancing on the top of the liquid to an eagerly expectant audience.
And at the end of all that bedlam, at the end of the rush and the running and the occasional stress panics, when the very last regular has staggered out into the night, comes the most peaceful time of the night. If I time it right, I can get most of the bar closed up quickly, everything wiped down, screwed on, and covered up. I turn off the "open" sign and lock the bar doors. Everything is pristine and perfect in a way it can never be when the bar is open. I drag the mats and the trash cans out back into the refreshingly cold night. The chairs go stacked on the tables, their legs sticking boldly up in the air. The music is low and most of the lights are out. Even though mopping and vacuuming lengthens the distance between my weary bones and my warm bed at 2am, I kind of like this part. Wiping away the insanity of a long day. Then I turn out the lights and leave. I love the sound of my footsteps echoing in the foggy streets, disturbing the sounds of night in a city - a shower or the buzz of the blue glow of a tv, the flickering of a street lamp or a confused bird twittering the coming of the sun, yet two hours away, and of course the dim moan of far-off cars, pounding through the night.
And that's why I love bartending.
Bartending is chemistry without the math. It's a creative controlled chaos and an excuse to spend my day chatting with strangers and friends. It's equal parts precision mixing, breezy interaction and cultivated style.
Some mornings I open the bar. Cool San Francisco mornings when the fog hasn't quite rolled back far enough. The streets are busy enough, but inside the bar it's quiet and calm. I like the days that are slow enough to put on the jazz station. Maybe I've been reading too much Dashiell Hammett, but to me that's what a bar should be like in the day time. A little Duke Ellington while I'm polishing the brass beer taps, wiping down the warm lacquered wood, and cutting garnishes for the day. The most steadfast regulars come in the early afternoon, around 3, and that's when I start to put out the bowls of pretzels. I'm almost in tune with their routines. Royal comes in with a magazine, orders an IPA or two and says little. Mary usually comes in with a book for a double of Jameson with a water back and a little conversation. She's easy to talk to and has an easy, infectious laugh. Pat and Mary come in for a bottle of O'Douls non-alcoholic beer and a cosmo (respectively). He looks every inch an Irish fisherman, complete with a round salt-and-pepper beard. Justin comes in for a couple IPAs and, through conversations about travel and world events, reminds me that I majored in economic development to improve the places in the world that most need improvement. Every Friday, like clockwork, old Josef comes in with his two middle-aged sons, Dean and Dev, and I get ready to serve a few rounds of Stella, MGD and Becks. Sometimes they are joined by the rest of the family, a couple of daughters and friends close enough to count as blood, but they always bring the party.
Of course after a few deliciously slow afternoons, I've developed a hankering for a busy night. I can't wait to get into the zone of rush, on a night when everything is going right. Ducking in and out of the bar, slipping through the crowds of people to deliver drinks, or grab clean glassware, spinning glasses and bottles and pouring out a rainbow of colors in to shakers. We ARE the movers and the shakers behind the bar on nights like that, dancing from one end of the bar to the other, working together based on intuition more than communication. And can I help YOU, sir? The blender whirs in the background, seemingly constantly, over the low dim, occasionally relieved by the humming of the refrigerators and the blended margarita machine. Three margaritas, an IPA and an Amber, coming right up! On nights like that, it feels like there are almost as many people lining up around the bar and there are bottles lined up in front of the mirrors and I'm presiding over them expertly, grinning and laughing like a fool, completely high on the pandemonium. Nothing beats the feeling of presenting two perfectly poured pints and a newly shaken jewel of a martini with the crystals dancing on the top of the liquid to an eagerly expectant audience.
And at the end of all that bedlam, at the end of the rush and the running and the occasional stress panics, when the very last regular has staggered out into the night, comes the most peaceful time of the night. If I time it right, I can get most of the bar closed up quickly, everything wiped down, screwed on, and covered up. I turn off the "open" sign and lock the bar doors. Everything is pristine and perfect in a way it can never be when the bar is open. I drag the mats and the trash cans out back into the refreshingly cold night. The chairs go stacked on the tables, their legs sticking boldly up in the air. The music is low and most of the lights are out. Even though mopping and vacuuming lengthens the distance between my weary bones and my warm bed at 2am, I kind of like this part. Wiping away the insanity of a long day. Then I turn out the lights and leave. I love the sound of my footsteps echoing in the foggy streets, disturbing the sounds of night in a city - a shower or the buzz of the blue glow of a tv, the flickering of a street lamp or a confused bird twittering the coming of the sun, yet two hours away, and of course the dim moan of far-off cars, pounding through the night.
And that's why I love bartending.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Best accompanied by an acoustic guitar and harmonica tinted with the blues
Sometimes I get lost in the poetry of living. I get carried away by the bittersweet melancholy of cliche moments or images.
There are always those scenes in movies and books where the characters do something utterly impractical but wonderfully romantic, like driving down to the river to just sit on the roof of the car and stare at the moonlight on the water, or releasing a silk scarf with sentimental value into the wind just to watch it dance away or tying hundreds or ribbons to a tree, just to sit in it and look at the sky. Sometimes moments like these seem contrived, but they're absolutely essential to the emotional fabric of the piece.
And, I think, to life.
A week and a half ago I moved out of one phase of life.
I've been living with the same group of friends, in the same house, for three years. And a week and a half ago, after graduating, we all moved out. I was the last one to leave. Literally, the last person to lock and close the door, coming full circle. (I had, after all, been the first one to get the keys and enter the house on the first day of our lease three years ago.) Pretty much everyone had emptied out the day before, and so I spent the last night sitting alone in an empty room, in an empty house.
And that was just how I wanted to say goodbye.
I know I'm sentimental and a hopeless romantic. And I love to live the cliches. So I wandered around the empty rooms for a while, flipping on lights and staring at the stark white walls and remembering them filled with laughter. Remembering the time we all jumped on the bed in this room, or the time we tried to fit 12 people on the bed in that room, remembering all the nights we crammed into this room and moaned about studying, all the times I'd drag my guitar into this room for a jam session and all the nights I stayed up until all hours in late-night convo in these rooms. When I was abroad for a year, they sent me a video of the giant spider they found in this bathroom. And I loved falling a sleep in the afternoon sun that came through that window...
I'd stare into a room for five minutes or so and ramble on, sniffling a little.
Then, at some point, I remembered that my life is not really a movie nor does it have an audience and all my theatrics were for naught. So I returned to my room.
I sat in the middle of my room, the with the only light on in the house, on the mattress of my dismantled bed with a half eaten box of take-out food and a half-finished rum and coke and played my guitar over the tinny folk-rock coming from my computer.
It was corny and overly nostalgic, but unlike my earlier mooning around the house, it was spontaneous and genuine and perfect.
I'll always remember that night removed from my body. I see it from the upper corner of the room, above the door, looking down on my own back draped in an over-sized t-shirt and dwarfed by the emptiness of the room, with my head tilted back and belting emotion out to fill my little lighted room engulfed by the thick, cool night and the scattered lights of Berkeley and stars like so many diamonds.
The next day I packed up my mattress and guitar and whatever else was left, closed the door, and moved myself into San Francisco.
And here I am.
I realized two things today: first, life is a series of short stories. Even if I'm not traveling, my life is a series of absurd, screwball and occasionally interesting vignettes. Second, if I don't have an outlet for my need to tell stories, I spend far too much time curled up at my window, staring wistfully out at the wood panels of the house next door because I can't see the stars. I will drown in wist.
Which is, of course, all a very characteristic way of saying "I'm baAAaack!"
There are always those scenes in movies and books where the characters do something utterly impractical but wonderfully romantic, like driving down to the river to just sit on the roof of the car and stare at the moonlight on the water, or releasing a silk scarf with sentimental value into the wind just to watch it dance away or tying hundreds or ribbons to a tree, just to sit in it and look at the sky. Sometimes moments like these seem contrived, but they're absolutely essential to the emotional fabric of the piece.
And, I think, to life.
A week and a half ago I moved out of one phase of life.
I've been living with the same group of friends, in the same house, for three years. And a week and a half ago, after graduating, we all moved out. I was the last one to leave. Literally, the last person to lock and close the door, coming full circle. (I had, after all, been the first one to get the keys and enter the house on the first day of our lease three years ago.) Pretty much everyone had emptied out the day before, and so I spent the last night sitting alone in an empty room, in an empty house.
And that was just how I wanted to say goodbye.
I know I'm sentimental and a hopeless romantic. And I love to live the cliches. So I wandered around the empty rooms for a while, flipping on lights and staring at the stark white walls and remembering them filled with laughter. Remembering the time we all jumped on the bed in this room, or the time we tried to fit 12 people on the bed in that room, remembering all the nights we crammed into this room and moaned about studying, all the times I'd drag my guitar into this room for a jam session and all the nights I stayed up until all hours in late-night convo in these rooms. When I was abroad for a year, they sent me a video of the giant spider they found in this bathroom. And I loved falling a sleep in the afternoon sun that came through that window...
I'd stare into a room for five minutes or so and ramble on, sniffling a little.
Then, at some point, I remembered that my life is not really a movie nor does it have an audience and all my theatrics were for naught. So I returned to my room.
I sat in the middle of my room, the with the only light on in the house, on the mattress of my dismantled bed with a half eaten box of take-out food and a half-finished rum and coke and played my guitar over the tinny folk-rock coming from my computer.
It was corny and overly nostalgic, but unlike my earlier mooning around the house, it was spontaneous and genuine and perfect.
I'll always remember that night removed from my body. I see it from the upper corner of the room, above the door, looking down on my own back draped in an over-sized t-shirt and dwarfed by the emptiness of the room, with my head tilted back and belting emotion out to fill my little lighted room engulfed by the thick, cool night and the scattered lights of Berkeley and stars like so many diamonds.
The next day I packed up my mattress and guitar and whatever else was left, closed the door, and moved myself into San Francisco.
And here I am.
I realized two things today: first, life is a series of short stories. Even if I'm not traveling, my life is a series of absurd, screwball and occasionally interesting vignettes. Second, if I don't have an outlet for my need to tell stories, I spend far too much time curled up at my window, staring wistfully out at the wood panels of the house next door because I can't see the stars. I will drown in wist.
Which is, of course, all a very characteristic way of saying "I'm baAAaack!"
Saturday, August 15, 2009
The Grand Finale
Bocas del Toro was my final trip here in Costa Rica. The next bus I’ll take (besides the one that takes me back after the internet café today, will take me to San José and eventually to the airport.
(I cannot even express how excited I am to fly again. But I won’t get into that now.)
Ems and I met up on the bus. It’d taken her from San José and picked me up in Guapiles en route to Panamá. And at the lunch stop, eating traditional and delicious almuerzo en hojas (lunch in leaves) that my host mom had made us, savoring the layers of tortillas, spiced mashed potatoes and eggs that had absorbed the flavor of the banana leaves, we agreed that it was shaping up to be an amazing weekend.
Her harrowing tale of her journey, which began waiting in a bar at 2am for a 3am bus was filled with wonderful signs that promised a beautiful weekend as had my much less harrowing tale. (Mine only started at 5:30 and included a nice taxi driver who’d dropped me off at the bus stop on the side of the highway and the ceviche preacher, a guy who sells ceviche (fish soup) at the bus stop and gives away religious pamphlets.
And of course the fact that we’d both made it onto the direct bus was a great sign.
After a good five hours of sleeping, we crossed the Panamanian border and hopped into a taxi with about 12 other people from the bus to the ferry to the Bocas del Toro archipelago. Being the smallest (which in this part of the world, is quite a surprise) or perhaps the blondest (not so much of a surprise), I sat on a pillow in between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat. During the hour long drive, the driver started out in stony silence, and ended up flirting in that horribly awkward old man way that was unfortunately less benign than old man flirting usually is.
Ems only laughed at me when I told her about it.
Finally on the main island, we found our hostel fresh with a big common room hung with hammocks and painted tangerine and lime green and littered with travelers.
There was a nice flat screen TV mounted on the wall that often showed re-runs of the Big Bang Theory and Friends and I’ll admit that it made me happy.
Also, it reminded me why I like hostel people so much. We scrounged dinner in the grocery store and made friends over a jenkey tuna salad, a bottle of coke and a bottle of rum. Then trooped out, sadly sans my partner in crime who, after being up for almost 24 hours, needed sleep.
Apparently the nightlife scene in Bocas takes place in hostels. We went to the big one, the famous one that’s famous for its nightlife and I was slightly jealous. It was grungy, to be sure, but you could tell that it was just plain awesome. In fact, a couple of hours into it, I met one of the receptionists that is not only transferring to Berkeley this semester, but is learning how to surf and climb, AND likes good music AND hates bad music (as judged by me).
I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive about returning to Bezerkeley. I mean, I’ve been gone for a year, why wouldn’t I be anxious? So it was lovely to meet someone in the same position.
Soon I was too tired and walked home, even though it was raining. When I got back, there was a group of hostellers sitting up on the top porch listening to music, and the sweet sounds of Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World" came drifting down. And it certainly was.
And if I thought that first night was awesome, I had no idea what was in store for the first full day.
I could build this whole thing up, explaining the morning, the early intensity of the sun and the curious lack of butterflies that accompanied the whole thing, but I’d rather not. I’d rather just jump into it.
You know when you build something up to yourself and then worry that it’ll let you down? I’ve been wanting to surf for 9 years.
9 years.
I looked into surf camp in 7th grade, in high school I jealously eyed those few who sometimes showed up with surfboards strapped to the tops of their cars and almost skipped school one day to drive down to Mavericks. My first year of college, I was determined that new beginnings was the perfect place to start things that I’d been wanting to do forever, like surfing and playing guitar. I even subscribed to a sear of Surf Magazine. By the time I got to Ireland, I was frustrated with the fact that I still had barely touched a surfboard and joined the surf club. Yea, like that was going to happen… not only was it cold as anything, but the exchange rate was killer and I couldn’t afford the cover for the trips. So when I got to Costa Rica I became obsessed with surf photography… those who can’t do, right?
So you can imagine the build up that I’ve created.
It was more glorious than I could have possibly imagined. And not just the fact that I, for once, stopped obsessing about the perfect, symbolic grand entrance and just did it.
I thought that paddling out would kill me, but apparently those push ups that I’ve been doing have been paying off.
I spent what felt like five hours trying, figuring out and convincing myself that I wouldn’t hit the coral or the rocks.
See Bocas is pretty much a strictly-expert surfing spot, but there is one beach that is good for beginners, except for the fact that it’s pretty far out and you have to watch out for coral and rocks if you get too close in. It’s safe, but I had to have someone who looked like she knew what she was doing reassure me of this fact.
The only thing that forced me back in after that first attempt was the guilt of hogging the boards we were sharing with two guys from the hostel.
And when I got back in, elated that I’d finally, FINALLY made that first step, I assumed that I wouldn’t be back out that day.
Wrong.
About an hour later I was out there, giving it my all. The phrase that convinced me back out was “It’ll all be worth it if you catch a wave” and it totally was. It’s an amazing feeling that’s as close as I think I’ll ever get to flying. I’ve had something similar once before, I was sitting up on my knees in the bow of the boat up on the lake at the cabin and it was really early in the morning. The water was pure glass and I was looking down into the perfect reflection of the trees that lined the shore racing past and I got a weightless feeling like I was flying. That’s how catching a wave felt, except faster and more exhilarating with clear blue water and white spray crowding my peripheral vision.
Although I caught a few on my knees, I did get to stand up at one point which was… thrilling, to say the least.
Let me tell you, it was every bit as worth the sunburn that stretched across my back and the back of my legs. Two weeks later it’s finally finished peeling. And even when it was burning, and even when it was peeling, I’d check out the damage in the mirror, and just feel proud.
I could have gone home that night and been perfectly happy with the weekend, but it wasn’t even half way done.
That night we went to this hostel/bar called Aqua that has a pool. And by “pool” I mean “a hole cut in the dock that it sat on and a jerry-rigged diving board.” I had a long conversation with an Irish kid who’d just spent four weeks in Haiti working with kids under the protection of the local ruling gang. (After which I felt pathetic describing my days weeding, so I emphasized the machete and the size of the bugs). By the end of the night we were all swimming (and by “we” I’m pretty sure I mean “a bunch of tourists”). My sandals and shirt got stolen, likely by some drunken chick who thought they were hers.
And at the end of the night, the sky would light up with dry lightning even though there were stars peaking through the clouds.
The next day rained.
And we got up late. And got out late. And then couldn’t figure out what to do. My ultimate plan had been to take surfing pictures all day and explore some beaches but there were, apparently, no waves and it just wasn’t a beach day.
So around 2 in the afternoon, Ems and I found ourselves on one of the other islands in the middle of an indigenous village.
It was one of those experiences that is valuable but I hadn’t expected or even really wanted. In the grey light of the rainy day, the whole village looked poorer than it maybe was, something that neither of us really expected. Bocas seems like such a touristy area that we were mildly shocked to find ourselves in a place so… colorless, where kids ran around in their underwear and clothes were hanging in vain on clotheslines and bony dogs skittered away.
The village has a newly formed tourism organization that has organized a forest walk on which they explain the medicinal plants and they have an artesian craft store. If you call ahead, they can prepare a traditional meal and do a traditional dance performance. And so it was wonderful to support a grassroots, community based push to take advantage of the archepelago’s booming tourism industry that also will help boost them out of the poverty and government neglect in which they live.
I feel like I reflect on this surprise with more negativity than my activist heart should, but I think it was just a jarring way to spend a vacation, especially since it was a vacation away from a community that also has a grassroots, community based development association, though albeit is much less poor and neglected. So I apologize for that.
As the sun was setting, we were sitting in Dolphin Bay with our fingers crossed. And although it’d just rained earlier that day, which they generally don’t like, we saw quite a few pairs of dolphins weaving up and down.
***
I took a nap when we got back to the hostel, to be refreshed when we went out that night. I woke up to Ems shouting that there was a group leaving for another hostel right NOW because our hostel was closing it’s common room for the night.
And I was gross. See, I’d napped instead of showering. It was cold and rainy and taking a cold shower was the last thing I’d wanted to do. So, still half asleep, I did my best to make myself less gross: changed the clothes, brushed my teeth and put on deodorant at the same time, and was simultaneously putting my hair in pigtails and screwing the bottle on my bottle of coke with a kick.
We stopped first at Hostel Calypso. After a while, part of the group, including Ems continued on, but I was too deep into my conversation with the Austrian girl, the German girl and her crazy jungle man boyfriend from Ohio and the two Kiwis. Because the night was nice and the music was amazing. I can’t remember what the conversation was about, but I do know that the iPod could have been my own. The Austrian girl, who’d just spent two weeks in Mal País and so loved it like I do, and I looked through the Kiwis’ iPod and took turns exclaiming about how much we loved this band and that band.
I mean, they had an extensive collection of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I know maybe two people who even know about BRMC and they’re a Bay Area band! And the Pogues! And the girl from Austria loves both as well?!? God I love travelers.
So we spent all night listening to good songs that gave me that warm nostalgia. Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin.
Oh and get this. As soon as we’d started in with Janis, me announcing, as I always do, that she was the one what taught me to sing, the speakers ran out of batteries and had to be charged for 20 minutes. So someone turns to me and says “can you sing Mercedez Benz?” Well of course I can! After two renditions of that classic, with everyone joining the last verse, and some assorted chatter, the speakers were juiced up and we continued on with our night of music and conversation. The younger Kiwi came up to me and with baleful, slightly unfocused eyes informed me that I had the best singing voice he’d ever heard. I smiled, but had to fight the urge to pat him on the arm sympathetically. Poor boy was drunk.
Soon I got to wishing that Ems hadn't a bounced. She loves good music and she's got a fantastic voice. I started looking for a good gap in the conversation where I could slip away to drag her back. Then all of a sudden, like she'd read my mind, here comes Ems!
It was a beautiful night, and a beautiful end to a good weekend.
(I cannot even express how excited I am to fly again. But I won’t get into that now.)
Ems and I met up on the bus. It’d taken her from San José and picked me up in Guapiles en route to Panamá. And at the lunch stop, eating traditional and delicious almuerzo en hojas (lunch in leaves) that my host mom had made us, savoring the layers of tortillas, spiced mashed potatoes and eggs that had absorbed the flavor of the banana leaves, we agreed that it was shaping up to be an amazing weekend.
Her harrowing tale of her journey, which began waiting in a bar at 2am for a 3am bus was filled with wonderful signs that promised a beautiful weekend as had my much less harrowing tale. (Mine only started at 5:30 and included a nice taxi driver who’d dropped me off at the bus stop on the side of the highway and the ceviche preacher, a guy who sells ceviche (fish soup) at the bus stop and gives away religious pamphlets.
And of course the fact that we’d both made it onto the direct bus was a great sign.
After a good five hours of sleeping, we crossed the Panamanian border and hopped into a taxi with about 12 other people from the bus to the ferry to the Bocas del Toro archipelago. Being the smallest (which in this part of the world, is quite a surprise) or perhaps the blondest (not so much of a surprise), I sat on a pillow in between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat. During the hour long drive, the driver started out in stony silence, and ended up flirting in that horribly awkward old man way that was unfortunately less benign than old man flirting usually is.
Ems only laughed at me when I told her about it.
Finally on the main island, we found our hostel fresh with a big common room hung with hammocks and painted tangerine and lime green and littered with travelers.
There was a nice flat screen TV mounted on the wall that often showed re-runs of the Big Bang Theory and Friends and I’ll admit that it made me happy.
Also, it reminded me why I like hostel people so much. We scrounged dinner in the grocery store and made friends over a jenkey tuna salad, a bottle of coke and a bottle of rum. Then trooped out, sadly sans my partner in crime who, after being up for almost 24 hours, needed sleep.
Apparently the nightlife scene in Bocas takes place in hostels. We went to the big one, the famous one that’s famous for its nightlife and I was slightly jealous. It was grungy, to be sure, but you could tell that it was just plain awesome. In fact, a couple of hours into it, I met one of the receptionists that is not only transferring to Berkeley this semester, but is learning how to surf and climb, AND likes good music AND hates bad music (as judged by me).
I’ll admit to being a little apprehensive about returning to Bezerkeley. I mean, I’ve been gone for a year, why wouldn’t I be anxious? So it was lovely to meet someone in the same position.
Soon I was too tired and walked home, even though it was raining. When I got back, there was a group of hostellers sitting up on the top porch listening to music, and the sweet sounds of Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World" came drifting down. And it certainly was.
And if I thought that first night was awesome, I had no idea what was in store for the first full day.
I could build this whole thing up, explaining the morning, the early intensity of the sun and the curious lack of butterflies that accompanied the whole thing, but I’d rather not. I’d rather just jump into it.
You know when you build something up to yourself and then worry that it’ll let you down? I’ve been wanting to surf for 9 years.
9 years.
I looked into surf camp in 7th grade, in high school I jealously eyed those few who sometimes showed up with surfboards strapped to the tops of their cars and almost skipped school one day to drive down to Mavericks. My first year of college, I was determined that new beginnings was the perfect place to start things that I’d been wanting to do forever, like surfing and playing guitar. I even subscribed to a sear of Surf Magazine. By the time I got to Ireland, I was frustrated with the fact that I still had barely touched a surfboard and joined the surf club. Yea, like that was going to happen… not only was it cold as anything, but the exchange rate was killer and I couldn’t afford the cover for the trips. So when I got to Costa Rica I became obsessed with surf photography… those who can’t do, right?
So you can imagine the build up that I’ve created.
It was more glorious than I could have possibly imagined. And not just the fact that I, for once, stopped obsessing about the perfect, symbolic grand entrance and just did it.
I thought that paddling out would kill me, but apparently those push ups that I’ve been doing have been paying off.
I spent what felt like five hours trying, figuring out and convincing myself that I wouldn’t hit the coral or the rocks.
See Bocas is pretty much a strictly-expert surfing spot, but there is one beach that is good for beginners, except for the fact that it’s pretty far out and you have to watch out for coral and rocks if you get too close in. It’s safe, but I had to have someone who looked like she knew what she was doing reassure me of this fact.
The only thing that forced me back in after that first attempt was the guilt of hogging the boards we were sharing with two guys from the hostel.
And when I got back in, elated that I’d finally, FINALLY made that first step, I assumed that I wouldn’t be back out that day.
Wrong.
About an hour later I was out there, giving it my all. The phrase that convinced me back out was “It’ll all be worth it if you catch a wave” and it totally was. It’s an amazing feeling that’s as close as I think I’ll ever get to flying. I’ve had something similar once before, I was sitting up on my knees in the bow of the boat up on the lake at the cabin and it was really early in the morning. The water was pure glass and I was looking down into the perfect reflection of the trees that lined the shore racing past and I got a weightless feeling like I was flying. That’s how catching a wave felt, except faster and more exhilarating with clear blue water and white spray crowding my peripheral vision.
Although I caught a few on my knees, I did get to stand up at one point which was… thrilling, to say the least.
Let me tell you, it was every bit as worth the sunburn that stretched across my back and the back of my legs. Two weeks later it’s finally finished peeling. And even when it was burning, and even when it was peeling, I’d check out the damage in the mirror, and just feel proud.
I could have gone home that night and been perfectly happy with the weekend, but it wasn’t even half way done.
That night we went to this hostel/bar called Aqua that has a pool. And by “pool” I mean “a hole cut in the dock that it sat on and a jerry-rigged diving board.” I had a long conversation with an Irish kid who’d just spent four weeks in Haiti working with kids under the protection of the local ruling gang. (After which I felt pathetic describing my days weeding, so I emphasized the machete and the size of the bugs). By the end of the night we were all swimming (and by “we” I’m pretty sure I mean “a bunch of tourists”). My sandals and shirt got stolen, likely by some drunken chick who thought they were hers.
And at the end of the night, the sky would light up with dry lightning even though there were stars peaking through the clouds.
The next day rained.
And we got up late. And got out late. And then couldn’t figure out what to do. My ultimate plan had been to take surfing pictures all day and explore some beaches but there were, apparently, no waves and it just wasn’t a beach day.
So around 2 in the afternoon, Ems and I found ourselves on one of the other islands in the middle of an indigenous village.
It was one of those experiences that is valuable but I hadn’t expected or even really wanted. In the grey light of the rainy day, the whole village looked poorer than it maybe was, something that neither of us really expected. Bocas seems like such a touristy area that we were mildly shocked to find ourselves in a place so… colorless, where kids ran around in their underwear and clothes were hanging in vain on clotheslines and bony dogs skittered away.
The village has a newly formed tourism organization that has organized a forest walk on which they explain the medicinal plants and they have an artesian craft store. If you call ahead, they can prepare a traditional meal and do a traditional dance performance. And so it was wonderful to support a grassroots, community based push to take advantage of the archepelago’s booming tourism industry that also will help boost them out of the poverty and government neglect in which they live.
I feel like I reflect on this surprise with more negativity than my activist heart should, but I think it was just a jarring way to spend a vacation, especially since it was a vacation away from a community that also has a grassroots, community based development association, though albeit is much less poor and neglected. So I apologize for that.
As the sun was setting, we were sitting in Dolphin Bay with our fingers crossed. And although it’d just rained earlier that day, which they generally don’t like, we saw quite a few pairs of dolphins weaving up and down.
***
I took a nap when we got back to the hostel, to be refreshed when we went out that night. I woke up to Ems shouting that there was a group leaving for another hostel right NOW because our hostel was closing it’s common room for the night.
And I was gross. See, I’d napped instead of showering. It was cold and rainy and taking a cold shower was the last thing I’d wanted to do. So, still half asleep, I did my best to make myself less gross: changed the clothes, brushed my teeth and put on deodorant at the same time, and was simultaneously putting my hair in pigtails and screwing the bottle on my bottle of coke with a kick.
We stopped first at Hostel Calypso. After a while, part of the group, including Ems continued on, but I was too deep into my conversation with the Austrian girl, the German girl and her crazy jungle man boyfriend from Ohio and the two Kiwis. Because the night was nice and the music was amazing. I can’t remember what the conversation was about, but I do know that the iPod could have been my own. The Austrian girl, who’d just spent two weeks in Mal País and so loved it like I do, and I looked through the Kiwis’ iPod and took turns exclaiming about how much we loved this band and that band.
I mean, they had an extensive collection of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. I know maybe two people who even know about BRMC and they’re a Bay Area band! And the Pogues! And the girl from Austria loves both as well?!? God I love travelers.
So we spent all night listening to good songs that gave me that warm nostalgia. Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin.
Oh and get this. As soon as we’d started in with Janis, me announcing, as I always do, that she was the one what taught me to sing, the speakers ran out of batteries and had to be charged for 20 minutes. So someone turns to me and says “can you sing Mercedez Benz?” Well of course I can! After two renditions of that classic, with everyone joining the last verse, and some assorted chatter, the speakers were juiced up and we continued on with our night of music and conversation. The younger Kiwi came up to me and with baleful, slightly unfocused eyes informed me that I had the best singing voice he’d ever heard. I smiled, but had to fight the urge to pat him on the arm sympathetically. Poor boy was drunk.
Soon I got to wishing that Ems hadn't a bounced. She loves good music and she's got a fantastic voice. I started looking for a good gap in the conversation where I could slip away to drag her back. Then all of a sudden, like she'd read my mind, here comes Ems!
It was a beautiful night, and a beautiful end to a good weekend.
Mal País Theory of Life
There are some things in life that you know usher in change. They’re not necessarily the cause of said change, but at least they are the catalyst.
I mean, I maintain that it’s a bit cliché, albeit for good reason, to say that studying abroad is a life-changing experience. I think it’s partly because it generally comes right around the time of the transition from teen to adult. I mean, I think most people really grow up in the last few years of college, with or without studying abroad.
This is really just a round about way of saying that my second trip to Mal País helped me distill all this change into my new theory of life. Which is not quite like the numerous Grand Plans that litter the path behind me, but no so unlike them either. (I have been reading way too much Steinbeck.)
I woke up on Saturday morning to start my trek across the country. I’d like to say something poetic like “the sun rose in benediction over that fine day” but I honestly can’t remember what the weather was like.
I do however remember what the journey was like:
6:30 bus from Santa Rosa to Guapiles.
Step off the bus in Guapiles and immediately (literally, no waiting) get on the bus to San José. Get off the bus in San José, walk purposefully towards a taxi that pulls up just as I get to the curb, drops me off at the Puntarenas bus station. See you can either take a direct bus from San Jose to Mal País at 7:30 am or 2:30 pm or you can take the bus to the ferry, and then take another series of buses to get to Mal País. I got into San Jo at 9 and figured that I’d try my chances and not wait around for the direct bus. So the taxi drops me off at the Puntarenas bus station, I buy my ticket for the 10 o clock bus, use the facilties and go to wait the ½ hour until the bus begins loading, but I suppose they load as soon as tickets sell out, because as soon as I stepped up, they started loading. We left 20 minutes early.
Perfect, I’m thinking. I can totally catch the 12:30 ferry. The next one is 1:30, but that’s not too long a wait, and it means I can probably catch the last bus to Mal País at 2:30 from Cobano.
I should have learned long ago not to get cocky like that.
We hit traffic and got into Puntarenas at 12:20. Well, I’m not paying for a taxi for a ferry I probably won’t catch anyways, so I figure I’ll just walk. It’s a nice day, I have a small bag and I figure I have plenty of time. I’m at the shore, which is lined with Tico vacationers and cheap souvenir stalls and food carts. The ferry leaves from the shore, so I figure I’ll follow it up and eventually hit the ferry.
So I walk. About a half an hour later, I see a sign for the ferry, round a corner, and see a ferry. My mind starts racing. Coming or going? Coming or going!?!
The Dos Pinos ice cream man gives me my answer. He tells me that I need to run because the 1 o’clock ferry is leaving and the next one isn’t until 3.
I swore then, but it’s okay, because I’m pretty sure he didn’t speak English. I run. And I get to the ticket booth at 1. And I’m too late.
So I sit down and I start to try and hold back the tears. STUPID! If I’d just taken the taxi, I’d have made it. And now I’m stuck here for another two hours. What the hell am I going to do for three hours?
…I need a drink.
Luckily there is a bar/restaurant across the street, overlooking the ferry dock (so I don’t miss it again). I order a rum and coke and a plate of fries (the first food I’ve eaten since 5:30 am) and continue to try and cork my tears.
The bar and the few tables around it are packed with locals. The rest of the tables in the place are empty, save mine, and two others that host tourists. One group of locals plays cards, and a group of five men joke at the bar. There’s a table with two old men, one who looks more Caribbean than Tico and the other who looks more Tico than anything, who aren’t acknowledging each other. The one is engrossed in an old newspaper and the other is dreaming off out the window.
There are various plastic fish decorating the place, a few beer ads and a distinctively round clock. There is radio music coming from a 5-CD changer stero that sits on top of a NICE sound board and speaker set. One of the men at the bar walks over, drops a coin into the slot machine next to me and succeeds only in producing that distinctively tinkling noise of the turning bells, lemons and bar symbols. This one, I think, was Spider man themed.
It was nice, and helped me pull myself out of a bit of a funk.
Eventually, I caught the 3 o’clock ferry and found myself on the bus to Cobano unsure of the next step. Miraculously I got off at the right stop, as the sky was warming with the promise of sunset. I rolled up my pant legs and tried to ask a woman what my next move should be. I see the sign for the taxi company, but I see no building beneath the sign… So I ask “I know I’ve missed the last bus to Mal País, but…” But she interrupts. No, it’s right there. Literally it pulled up behind the bus I’d just gotten off. Off one, on the other, just like it’d started out today.
Man I love traveling.
I looked out the window until I couldn’t see out anymore and hopped out in front of the hostel Ems and I’d planned to meet at, content that the night was practically over. Probably she was already there.
Turns out it was not and she was not.
The hostel is really funky – it’s called Casa Zen and houses one of the best Thai food places I’ve ever eaten at (and that is the kind of place Mal País is). Sadly, it does not take reservations, and turns out, it was full up.
It’s 6 at night, dark and I have no where to sleep and no idea where Ems is except that she had been at a protest that morning and was hoping that she wouldn’t get arrested like the leaders had been the previous year.
And being the brilliant child I am, I didn’t leave her a note as I wandered off into the night. I walked into the only other hostel I knew, the Backpackers and confronted the guy at the desk.
“Look, I know it’s a long shot in the dark, but do you happen to have two beds available for tonight?”
And he did.
Long story short, I found beds, I found Ems wandering the streets and all was right with the world.
But the thing is, that’s not really the part that prompted the Theory of Life.
Nothing specifically did. I mean, I could give you a run down of the whole weekend, like how we talked over Thai food for like two hours, even though we’d only been apart for two weeks, went out that night with some of the hostel kids (lots of kids from Norway, Israel and Florida), like how we got up early the next morning, out of habit, and ended up walking down the beach to take pictures and ending up trekking for three hours ending up in the middle of nowhere, almost burned to a crisp, thirsty, hungry and pissed off. Or how at that point we decided to trek back on the road and stop at the first place we saw, and how after walking for 45 minutes hadn’t seen any but thankfully got a ride in the back of a pick up with the surfers who’d had to break it to us that we were 3 km away from the hostel and 1 km away from any food. And how delicious that food was and how beautiful it was to spend the rest of the afternoon napping in hammocks amongst reds, oranges and yellows.
I could tell you about how I didn’t get one good picture of a surfer all weekend, but played a ton of pool with a kid from Germany, a kid from Ireland and two guys from Florida.
I could bring up the fact that, save the thai food, we didn’t eat at one of the planned places because we were only there for a Sunday, when everything is closed. But it was amazing anyways.
Basically, it wasn’t the weekend I’d planned, but that was just fine. As I stood on the ferry, watching the retreating landmass that I loved so much, I got the urge to turn back and just stay. Just say “fuck it,” leave the internship and try to find a job waitressing or as the receptionist that they were looking for at the Backpackers, perhaps just until my flight home, perhaps indefinitely. Struggling with a bittersweet melancholy, that was only partially due to that deliciously oppressive heat of the dog days of summer, I watched the sun dancing around on the top of the water and then slanting down through it. It reminded me of the cabin.
I don’t think that I can ever really accurately describe the vibe of Mal País except that it is a community, heavy with ex-pats, that enjoys surfing and yoga and feels intrinsically artistic. It is a place that makes me want to surf and to sit on the beach and write and draw in my notebook and eat food that includes lemon grass and ginger. It’s not the most breath-taking beach in the country, and it definitely doesn’t really feel like a part of Costa Rica at all, but it’s one of those places that I know I’ll go back to.
The last time I had that feeling, that peaceful melancholy that follows an impulse to throw it all away and just stay in a place, and the surety of return, I was sitting on a wall above the sea in San Sebastian. We were waiting to head to the train station to catch the train that would take us back to Paris to catch the flight that would take us home, after two months, to start college and the rest of our lives.
But it was kind of nice this time. Because something about that weekend with people whose attitude towards life I so admired because it blends a profound appreciation for life with a calm and inner peace that I’m not ready to lose myself to but to which I aspire, and also a purely logical “what are you waiting for?” which is actually more of an answer than a question.
Which of course, was exactly the attitude that got me surfing the following weekend in Bocas del Toro
I mean, I maintain that it’s a bit cliché, albeit for good reason, to say that studying abroad is a life-changing experience. I think it’s partly because it generally comes right around the time of the transition from teen to adult. I mean, I think most people really grow up in the last few years of college, with or without studying abroad.
This is really just a round about way of saying that my second trip to Mal País helped me distill all this change into my new theory of life. Which is not quite like the numerous Grand Plans that litter the path behind me, but no so unlike them either. (I have been reading way too much Steinbeck.)
I woke up on Saturday morning to start my trek across the country. I’d like to say something poetic like “the sun rose in benediction over that fine day” but I honestly can’t remember what the weather was like.
I do however remember what the journey was like:
6:30 bus from Santa Rosa to Guapiles.
Step off the bus in Guapiles and immediately (literally, no waiting) get on the bus to San José. Get off the bus in San José, walk purposefully towards a taxi that pulls up just as I get to the curb, drops me off at the Puntarenas bus station. See you can either take a direct bus from San Jose to Mal País at 7:30 am or 2:30 pm or you can take the bus to the ferry, and then take another series of buses to get to Mal País. I got into San Jo at 9 and figured that I’d try my chances and not wait around for the direct bus. So the taxi drops me off at the Puntarenas bus station, I buy my ticket for the 10 o clock bus, use the facilties and go to wait the ½ hour until the bus begins loading, but I suppose they load as soon as tickets sell out, because as soon as I stepped up, they started loading. We left 20 minutes early.
Perfect, I’m thinking. I can totally catch the 12:30 ferry. The next one is 1:30, but that’s not too long a wait, and it means I can probably catch the last bus to Mal País at 2:30 from Cobano.
I should have learned long ago not to get cocky like that.
We hit traffic and got into Puntarenas at 12:20. Well, I’m not paying for a taxi for a ferry I probably won’t catch anyways, so I figure I’ll just walk. It’s a nice day, I have a small bag and I figure I have plenty of time. I’m at the shore, which is lined with Tico vacationers and cheap souvenir stalls and food carts. The ferry leaves from the shore, so I figure I’ll follow it up and eventually hit the ferry.
So I walk. About a half an hour later, I see a sign for the ferry, round a corner, and see a ferry. My mind starts racing. Coming or going? Coming or going!?!
The Dos Pinos ice cream man gives me my answer. He tells me that I need to run because the 1 o’clock ferry is leaving and the next one isn’t until 3.
I swore then, but it’s okay, because I’m pretty sure he didn’t speak English. I run. And I get to the ticket booth at 1. And I’m too late.
So I sit down and I start to try and hold back the tears. STUPID! If I’d just taken the taxi, I’d have made it. And now I’m stuck here for another two hours. What the hell am I going to do for three hours?
…I need a drink.
Luckily there is a bar/restaurant across the street, overlooking the ferry dock (so I don’t miss it again). I order a rum and coke and a plate of fries (the first food I’ve eaten since 5:30 am) and continue to try and cork my tears.
The bar and the few tables around it are packed with locals. The rest of the tables in the place are empty, save mine, and two others that host tourists. One group of locals plays cards, and a group of five men joke at the bar. There’s a table with two old men, one who looks more Caribbean than Tico and the other who looks more Tico than anything, who aren’t acknowledging each other. The one is engrossed in an old newspaper and the other is dreaming off out the window.
There are various plastic fish decorating the place, a few beer ads and a distinctively round clock. There is radio music coming from a 5-CD changer stero that sits on top of a NICE sound board and speaker set. One of the men at the bar walks over, drops a coin into the slot machine next to me and succeeds only in producing that distinctively tinkling noise of the turning bells, lemons and bar symbols. This one, I think, was Spider man themed.
It was nice, and helped me pull myself out of a bit of a funk.
Eventually, I caught the 3 o’clock ferry and found myself on the bus to Cobano unsure of the next step. Miraculously I got off at the right stop, as the sky was warming with the promise of sunset. I rolled up my pant legs and tried to ask a woman what my next move should be. I see the sign for the taxi company, but I see no building beneath the sign… So I ask “I know I’ve missed the last bus to Mal País, but…” But she interrupts. No, it’s right there. Literally it pulled up behind the bus I’d just gotten off. Off one, on the other, just like it’d started out today.
Man I love traveling.
I looked out the window until I couldn’t see out anymore and hopped out in front of the hostel Ems and I’d planned to meet at, content that the night was practically over. Probably she was already there.
Turns out it was not and she was not.
The hostel is really funky – it’s called Casa Zen and houses one of the best Thai food places I’ve ever eaten at (and that is the kind of place Mal País is). Sadly, it does not take reservations, and turns out, it was full up.
It’s 6 at night, dark and I have no where to sleep and no idea where Ems is except that she had been at a protest that morning and was hoping that she wouldn’t get arrested like the leaders had been the previous year.
And being the brilliant child I am, I didn’t leave her a note as I wandered off into the night. I walked into the only other hostel I knew, the Backpackers and confronted the guy at the desk.
“Look, I know it’s a long shot in the dark, but do you happen to have two beds available for tonight?”
And he did.
Long story short, I found beds, I found Ems wandering the streets and all was right with the world.
But the thing is, that’s not really the part that prompted the Theory of Life.
Nothing specifically did. I mean, I could give you a run down of the whole weekend, like how we talked over Thai food for like two hours, even though we’d only been apart for two weeks, went out that night with some of the hostel kids (lots of kids from Norway, Israel and Florida), like how we got up early the next morning, out of habit, and ended up walking down the beach to take pictures and ending up trekking for three hours ending up in the middle of nowhere, almost burned to a crisp, thirsty, hungry and pissed off. Or how at that point we decided to trek back on the road and stop at the first place we saw, and how after walking for 45 minutes hadn’t seen any but thankfully got a ride in the back of a pick up with the surfers who’d had to break it to us that we were 3 km away from the hostel and 1 km away from any food. And how delicious that food was and how beautiful it was to spend the rest of the afternoon napping in hammocks amongst reds, oranges and yellows.
I could tell you about how I didn’t get one good picture of a surfer all weekend, but played a ton of pool with a kid from Germany, a kid from Ireland and two guys from Florida.
I could bring up the fact that, save the thai food, we didn’t eat at one of the planned places because we were only there for a Sunday, when everything is closed. But it was amazing anyways.
Basically, it wasn’t the weekend I’d planned, but that was just fine. As I stood on the ferry, watching the retreating landmass that I loved so much, I got the urge to turn back and just stay. Just say “fuck it,” leave the internship and try to find a job waitressing or as the receptionist that they were looking for at the Backpackers, perhaps just until my flight home, perhaps indefinitely. Struggling with a bittersweet melancholy, that was only partially due to that deliciously oppressive heat of the dog days of summer, I watched the sun dancing around on the top of the water and then slanting down through it. It reminded me of the cabin.
I don’t think that I can ever really accurately describe the vibe of Mal País except that it is a community, heavy with ex-pats, that enjoys surfing and yoga and feels intrinsically artistic. It is a place that makes me want to surf and to sit on the beach and write and draw in my notebook and eat food that includes lemon grass and ginger. It’s not the most breath-taking beach in the country, and it definitely doesn’t really feel like a part of Costa Rica at all, but it’s one of those places that I know I’ll go back to.
The last time I had that feeling, that peaceful melancholy that follows an impulse to throw it all away and just stay in a place, and the surety of return, I was sitting on a wall above the sea in San Sebastian. We were waiting to head to the train station to catch the train that would take us back to Paris to catch the flight that would take us home, after two months, to start college and the rest of our lives.
But it was kind of nice this time. Because something about that weekend with people whose attitude towards life I so admired because it blends a profound appreciation for life with a calm and inner peace that I’m not ready to lose myself to but to which I aspire, and also a purely logical “what are you waiting for?” which is actually more of an answer than a question.
Which of course, was exactly the attitude that got me surfing the following weekend in Bocas del Toro
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