It never rains in California, except when it does

It's a little after 6:00 a.m. and rain is falling steadily in the dark in Corona del Mar. It is falling all over Southern California, and the news that we can expect more rain this winter is being met with mixed reactions. California is nearly always in a state of drought or near drought, so of course the rain is welcome as a way to replenish reservoirs and water tables. But rain also brings with it the threat of mudslides for those hillside areas where recent wildfires destroyed the vegetation that anchors soil to slope. Residents there are bracing themselves and their homes with sandbags and hoping the predictions are wrong.

Rain, mud, and wildfires, and to this mix we must add hubris. In some way, all human acts beyond those strictly necessary for survival of self and specie contain some degree of hubris, and building homes that would qualify as mansions on vulnerable hillsides is one highly visible example. That someone would want to live on a hillside, which often come with views of mountains and oceans and valleys, is not hubristic. That someone would engineer a home to allow this to happen is also not hubristic, and these are the iconic homes of California's hillside communities circa 1950. They tend to be low-slung and relatively modest, and they fit themselves into nooks in the hillside that require little to no additional excavating.

It's when the land itself is engineered to accomodate structures that are in themselves hubristic that human hubris shifts exponentially to become akin to a force of nature, and we should worry when this happens. We should worry when our thinking shifts from How do I live on the land? to How do I change the land so it better suits my desires?

In California, evidence of these two mindsets, and the debate that springs up in the gulf between them, can be seen and heard everywhere. One of my favorite restaurants, Memphis, asks the first question when it moves into the structures left behind by a 1960s era gas station and figures out how to make that configuration work. No fortunes will be made at Memphis, but good food is served there, servers make an honest living, and the people who live in the area had their landscape changed very little when the land changed use.

Just down the road, however, is a giant Edwards movie theater that reflects the second mindset. The theater is part of a large outdoor shopping complex that replaced a much more humble mixed-use center. The walls of the theater rise massively from the sidewalk, oblivious to human scale and dimension.

Three weeks later.
It's no longer raining, but the fog has rolled in. I'm new to CdM, so I don't know if this is typical for this time of year. I hope it is--there is something about fog that is very appealing. The way it moves and scatters light. The way it gives air and oxygen intensity that demands you pay attention.

Fog isn't really a singular thing, it's more of a collection of things, of particles each with their own density and mass, and as you move through the fog, they seem to shift and move in response your presence. Fog and mist are things I experienced only occasionally when I lived inland, but now that I can measure the distance from my home to the ocean in feet rather than miles, I am coming to realize that air-borne water--which is what fog and mist are--does amazing things to light, and I like it.

China and Taiwan

We buy things made in China and Taiwan, and in so doing, distribute the worlds resources more uniformly than before the age of Walmart.  Is Walmart really the great social equalizer?

That's partly why I want to go to LA, La Jolla and Palm Springs, because, in my imagination, those places don't have any Walmarts.  LA is bright and expansive and way too hip and modern to have a Walmart.  La Jolla, old coastal California style with a stronger connection to Los Angeles than San Diego.  La Jolla has only small, speciality stores, with dramatic coastal views and no room for a Walmart.  Palm Springs is way out in the desert--tumble weed, sand and snakes.  It's so deserted out there in Palm Springs that if they did open a Walmart out there in the desert, there wouldn't be anybody to go to it!

We're searching for California, and releasing the grip of big box stuff.  We're looking for freeways and palm trees, orange groves and dusty old motels.  We're gonna drive that highway and find something.

California Redux

Two People Went on a Journey

The California that Richard describes, with its bright, expansive Los Angeles, its deserted Palm Springs, and its time-untouched La Jolla does exist, but it will take some work to find it. This blog will document that journey and in doing so will probably reveal something more about California than we can imagine right now, but it will likely also reveal something about us, about who we are that we are even looking for such a place.

















How will we know it when we see it, this land where Walmart doesn’t exist in any significant way? Where big box stores have not produced a race of hyperconsumers, where books and music and food and art and experiences are not bought and sold but shared? Maybe we won’t so much find it as create it in our own interactions. Maybe it doesn’t matter if we find it. Maybe all that matters is that we look for it and that we are ready to embrace it when it does appear in places and forms that we don't expect.

Creation

This blog is about a trip, at this point--a future trip, from Waimea, Big Island to Corona del Mar, CA. From Corona del Mar, we're planning to go to LA, La Jolla and Palm Springs. Two of us are traveling: Danielle and Richard. This is the story of our trans-dimensional journey.