feather2pixels

I can’t avoid this any longer.  It is August and I’m not quite sure what happened to July.  I hit a brick wall.  My life slowed to a halt.  Everything was suspended.  And now it’s time for that to be over.

But right now there are only two ways things can go.  And I need them to go forward.

Bulldogger recently bought a 1996 black Volkswagen Jetta. The good thing about it is that it has only logged 50,000 miles. The bad thing about it is that the driver side window dismantled itself almost immediately. So I agreed to join her quest to repair it in Oakland. The most remarkable thing about Bulldogger’s 1996 black Volkswagen Jetta was how thoroughly she had managed to blanket it with bird shit in only a week—-it’s hard to imagine how she would achieve a more consistent coat if she were trying. I opened the passenger door carefully, slid in the passenger seat, and we drove across the bridge to downtown Oakland.

While a commune of mechanics replaced the small motor, we took a walk around the deceptively long perimeter of Lake Merrit and talked about dressing up: another conversation prompted by my newly acquired Vietnamese suit (it is enjoying a second voyage around the far side of the earth and I will see it in September). Of course the literal begets the metaphorical. “I feel less feminine in dresses, like I’m an impostor,” she said, and even though it’s been over a decade since I was in one one myself, dressed up as Lillian Gish for Mrs. French-Folk’s social studies class, I knew exactly what she meant. One continuous observation since finding myself back on dry land has been an excess of style over substance. I’m not against that, necessarily, but does anyone really fit into the 94110? A little later on, smoothies in hand, she announced her independence from the Mission, the City, and the particular complications of her hurried and cluttered life. “I am ready to slow things down,” she said. Which begs the question: should I accept her offer to split the Berkeley Hills house that she inherited from her father?

Specifically: one room, the equivalent second room made from half an art studio and half a garage, eternal sunshine, and a thirty foot walk to the wilds of Tilden Park. “Get a dog if you want.” She’s moving this month.

Jesus, that is tempting.

But it doesn’t feel quite right; funny thing is, I can’t really convince myself why. Maybe it too much resembles the kind of settling that I promised myself wasn’t happening when I accepted a full time job last year. Maybe a part of me needs to feel dressed up with nowhere to go in order to actually get anywhere. Or maybe I am still too infatuated with the city to imagine leaving—-the Berkeley Hills are magical but they lack the majesty of the coast. This is more or less the same internal quarrel I experience every time I leave the city limits of San Francisco. Oh, why do all of the dilemmas always blow in from the East?

My last day on land was hot and clear, with only a few cirrus clouds breaking up the sky at a high altitude. Down on the Academy quad, campus was temporarily transformed from a sleepy backwater into mass of sun dresses, academic regalia, and grandfathers in Dockers as a standing room only crowd overflowed from under an enormous white circus tent. The occasion was the graduation ceremony of 144 cadets, dressed in their salt and pepper uniforms, ready to take on their watery destinies.

Of course it was thirty three of these seniors whom I dragged through nine credit hours worth of electrically conductive muck this year. And of course my shit was not nearly together enough to have made the necessary arrangements to be part of the ceremony. So I put on my emergency dress shirt, positioned myself at the front of their formation, and intercepted my students one by one to quickly shake their hands as they marched in line to the tent.

I couldn’t have cared less about my own graduation, but something wholesome-seeming about the cadets’ enthusiasm won me over this afternoon. Rita, who, despite an admirable work ethic, struggled all year, found me after the ceremony. Until that moment, I had been completely unsure if my ongoing efforts to encourage her made any difference; she gave me a huge hug and squeaked “thank you so much for everything.” Ryan introduced me as his teacher to his mom, who’s surprise suggested that she was expecting me to be the janitor or something. I looked at him and we laughed. It was damn wholesome.

And as quickly as they appeared, the masses dissipated and suddenly there was nothing left to do but to consider my own watery destiny. I walked to the top of the cliff to get one last glimpse of campus and the Bear, plopped under the Carquinez Bridge for one last night this summer. And then I stole the golf cart, drove my stuff to the dock, and moved in to my cabin. I’m not sure what to expect, really. But I have a great room, the best job on the ship, and 20,000km of water ahead of me: it’s time to get off this rock.

[campus]

[the bear]

[the dock]

[my cabin]