Santa Cruz
The season of elections makes me miss Santa Cruz. The last presidential election had me there, roaming the streets and staring out at the ocean. Santa Cruz is a unique place and although I’ve been all over the California coast, there is no place like it. My company forgot their usual pattern of putting me in dumps and I got to stay in a hotel perched on a cliff that overlooked the Pacific ocean.
When the network news channels mistakenly reported that Gore had carried Florida, a man drove down the Main Street in a hearse, a loudspeaker on top shouting that Republicans were to report to internment camp.
There was always a throng of the homeless and youths dressed “punk” downtown. In one confrontation a kid with spiked hair and metal spikes on his wrist bands began a shouting match with an old man in a tank top. The old man turned the youth on his heels and even as the kid melted away the man (in his 60s perhaps) taunted him.
S and I went to eat Italian at a tiny restaurant where the owner, Lucio Fanni, and two young women handled all the tables. There was no barrier between Lucio's stoves and the diners, and as well there was no barrier between the diners and his frantic shouting as he cooked.
In a laundry mat I saw two girls in Eastern monk garb. One captivated me because she had an extraordinarily beautiful face and yet her head was shaved. She caught me staring at her, wondering about her story. Why would someone as beautiful uproot themselves, shave their heads and live in a monastery? We exchanged words briefly but she had to go. Her parting words were: “You can always find me. Come to the monastery and ask for Courage.” It took a few minutes to realize her name, Courage, was what she meant.
There is a myth that strange people drift westward as they migrate away from their established roots. The reason so many unconventional people live on the west coast is that there is no place left to go. Santa Cruz is one such place: as far west as a person could go.
10:01:33 PM 
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