My city?

I took these two pictures this morning before I came to work. I start my work week on Sundays, and although it's a bit sad at times to have to work when most people will be enjoying the day off, it is mostly quiet and pretty relaxed both on the street in the early morning, as well as at my job. I was earlier than I needed to be to start working, so I decided to drive up to Twin Peaks, a hill with great views near where I work, and an often visited tourist locale as well.
   I have been thinking about my future in San Francisco the last few months, wondering how long I imagined staying here amid the ever increasing flow of young technology professionals that are beginning to make the city feel more crowded and too young for this particular fifty one year old man. Just yesterday, while discussing this issue with my wife, I began to feel a sense of urgency about moving, and almost broke into a sort of panic because of it.
   I calmed down a bit later after sitting and writing in a small, quiet coffee shop in the hip area which had helped to elicit these negative feelings within me, and some of the intensity began to subside. I started to think about how I can spend the greater part of my time in places that I love here, such as the parks, beach, and hills like the one where I took the pictures below. I realized that to live in the middle of nowhere would not afford me the choice to look in trendy shops or sample many new restaurants should I choose to, and choice is important to me. I realized that there are a kind of two parts of the city for me, and I can choose, for the most part, when I want to leave the quieter, western part of the city where I live.
   I can't imagine that there are many even remotely cosmopolitan places in the world that can offer me the kind of natural environments that San Francisco does, that still thrill me at times even after more than nine years, and that can offer me secluded woods just a short drive out of the city.

A panoramic view of the city (facing northeast)

 

View to the west

A city map

Collapsing side mirrors

   Whether or not people have been folding in the side view windows of their cars for a long time I don't know, but I've certainly been noticing it more over the last year or so. I'm sure that these mirrors have been collapsible for some time now, but my focus on them seems to have accelerated over time, probably due to my negative feelings about the types of cars that people seem to exercise this option with.
   Let me state here that certain people with money make me uncomfortable, in particular when I believe that the appearance of it is diplayed ostentatiously, and like most things that annoy me, I seem to spend more time dwelling on then I do on things that don't. Almost without fail, when I see a car with it's side mirrors folded in, it is on a luxury car, such as an Audi, Lexus, or Mercedes Benz, as pictured below.
   The reason that the mirrors on these cars tend to be folded in more than on other cars seems apparent to me; the cars mentioned are expensive, and the owners want to protect them. What interests me is why people with pricey cars should want to protect them more than people with ones that don't cost as much. Should I assume that if one has a fairly inexpensive car than they don't need to worry about it being damaged because they could easily buy another one, or is it a matter of investment, and people with expensive cars want their resale value to remain high? I own an inexpensive car, and although it would not be without financial pain for me to have to buy a new one, I don't fold in my mirrors as a matter of practice.
   I believe that ir's because the cars being talked about here mean a lot as status symbols to the people that own them, and that is what I am writing this blog entry. To me, anything that a person can buy says nothing positive about that individual; in fact, it seems kind of sad, but most cultures do teach their inhabitants that symbols of wealth are good, and perhaps it is that which makes me so angry.
   I generally choose to write about things that fascinate or bother me, as a way to get a better understanding on the subjects, and if the subject bothers me, to hopefully find a place of peace with it, at least temporarily.
In this particular case, I don't believe that thinking and writing on this subject will necessarily help me to feel more understanding of the people with these cars, but writing as a practice does make me feel better as an act of creative expression, and sometimes that is good enough.

A Mercedes Benz, windows folded in (even on 

the right side where no cars could inadvertantly clip it).

Country-tinged music from when I was a kid

   I never really cared much for American country music, in fact, I never liked it at all, until the last few years, when I began to discover some of it that I found both soothing and sad, in ways that spoke to my own inner hurt. I discovered most of this music, mostly country-tinged music rather than standard country, by searching the internet and music blogs that I respected, and found that nearly all of the music from this category that I liked had been recorded in the period from the late nineteen sixties through the mid nineteen seventies. I can't tell whether knowing the years that the music was recorded somehow influenced my choice to like it, or if the music from that period had a flavor and sound distinct to that time, but pretty much without fail it is only that period which I like.
   I don't believe it a coincidence that this country music that I like is sad in sound (not all country music is sad), because the music from this time that I am writing about coincides with a time in my life that started as seemingly stable (as far as I can remember), to a time filled with pain and crippling anxiety, due in no small part to my parent's bitter separation and eventual divorce. It's as if the music is able to bring me back emotionally to that time, drop me in the pain there, and allow me to gradually experience it as an adult in a way that I couldn't withstand years ago, so I just stuffed it down the best that I could.
   So now, when I listen to certain country-styled music from that time, it's like I've split off into two people, and one of these people has the task of experiencing new things in a way that connects some of the past to the other half that still lives mostly in the present. It's helps me to get back to places that I had previously shut out emotionally, and although it can make me sad, I feel like it helps me to partially loosen some of the knots that restrict me internally.
   When I used to engage in visual art-making regularly, I used to subscribe to the idea that content, or ideas, should determine the form. When it comes to my emotional life and memories, it seems that form can justifiably help to determine content as well; without this possibility, I doubt that I would have expereienced some of these feelings enabled by my exploration of this music.

The cover from the album featuring a song which never fails
to move me, released when I was four or five years old.

Quiet music

   I can''t say that I am easily shocked by much besides the intensity of my feelings at times, but when I think a bit about how some of my tastes have changed about music, I am surprised. As an example, I remember thinking that I'd never listen to folk music unless it had an important connection to my past (an example might be a song from a record that my father played when I was growing up), and while my interest in some of this music ebbs and flows, I do listen to it, despite my past absolute belief to the contrary.
   Along these lines would also be included jazz, which I had no interest in or experience with, only the complete disdain for. I now often listen to a jazz radio station in my car when I drive, and have begun exploring more of this genre, listening to it at home as well on occasion.
   While jazz can often be quite uptempo and vibrant, both of these forms of music could for me be put in the category I would call "quiet music" (or at least quieter music than I used to listen to).  I find that music which is less aggressive and forceful provides not only a calming respite, but also just seems to go better with my temperament at this time in my life. It's not that I am so much calmer and relaxed as a person in the world, but I seek to have these qualities more now, and that is a change, albeit a gradual one. I have not found that being more relaxed is necessarily easier as I get older, but feel that doing something concrete to create that environment around me seems more vital.
   Not only do I prefer a quieter music these days, but more tranquil surroundings as well. I now would choose visiting a beautiful park or forest over visiting a city on almost any occasion, as I've grown to accept, through experience, that places without a lot of commotion help to calm my internal commotion. Because I feel like a savage beast at times, I turn to quiet music for it's charms, to paraphrase the famous quote.

 

Immigration policy

   I have been thinking quite a bit recently about my relationship with immigrants, and how it informs the ways that I think of myself ethnically and culturally. As an adult, I have often found myself living in neighborhoods with high minority populations, so have often felt like the outsider culturally there. Although I probably have been the minority in those enclaves, I imagine that it has been those residents that has felt that way in the wider society, yet even in that larger culture, I still tend to feel something like a tolerated guest at best.
   I should mention here that although I am white, I am ethnically (though non-religiously) Jewish, and that fact has tended to make it difficult for me to fully identify with other Caucasian people; like the pork industry states about their product, I feel like the other white meat.
   This feeling of being this other in a majority population is a confusing place; like an entity that is forever in between other things, I can't quite figure out to whom or where I belong, and although I have never wanted to belong to groups (most likely as a way to try to verify my uniqueness to myself), I suspect that I in fact don't feel like I belong, rather than not really wanting to belong.
   I recall on multiple occasions seeing programs on television about life in prison, and when prisoners talk of the need for 'staying with your race' for one's own safety, I become puzzled; I suspect the 'white' groups (the apparent group for me) would have neo-Nazi tendencies, and then what place would I have there?
   Born in New York City and a resident there for fourty two years, I had always thought of myself as a "New Yorker", even for some years after living in my current state of California. I now think of myself as a person from New York, and although I try to think of myself as a Californian, I'm not sure that I believe myself.
   Here in the United States, there has been a lot of discussion about immigration over the last few years, and it has given me pause to think about my own policy; am I allowing myself to emigrate, or shall I forever be the 'wandering Jew', remaining the diaspora that I may or may not want to be?

Preparing for possibility

   This is the time of year for babies around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. There are ducklings and goslings, to name just a couple, while other birds are preparing for their newborns, including herons and small back birds whose name I do not know, but who do a great job of harassing squirrels and human passersby who venture too close to their nests.
   Most of the people that I see on my daily walks marvel at the infant and juvenile animals there, but I am much more interested in the gathering, building and waiting than the 'finished products'. I first started to realize this when on multiple occasions I saw a large bird (a heron) clumsily land on a branch some distance from the tree it's normally associated with, and a minute or so l later taking flight again, this time with some sticks in its mouth. There was something about this image that stuck with me.
   It would be easy to surmise that I appreciate and feel more comfortable with process than with ending, but the reality is that little could be farther from the truth. I am very uncomfortable with unfinished things, and do all I can to avoid them as often as possible.
   One could also say that I am drawn to the building and construction because it is a creative endeavor, like an artist whose art is only meaningful for them as an act of creation. That wouldn't be true for me, either. I have some history as a visual artist, and there too, I generally preferred finishing the artwork to the making of it, though there were times that the creation aspect was fun and educational.
   It's strange then to me that what I'm drawn to here at the lake doesn't strike me as preparation as much as something else, something more like readying for possibility. This notion feels like freedom to me. In it lies the hope that I can feel more unencumbered by limits, and more filled with the excitement of possibility.

The home base of the small, harassing black birds.

Lovin' you?

   I don't listen to music of my own choosing as much as I used to. I now often prefer silence, the radio (usually classical, jazz or progressive talk radio) and the (sometime) desire to listen to what's going on within me physically and emotionally, though when I do want to choose my music, I'm often in my car, so I plug in my iPhone to play what I've loaded onto it.
   Every so often I connect the phone to my computer at home to change what I've put there, but over the last three years or so there's almost always a consistent selection of soft pop music from the nineteen seventies.
   For most of the year ninety seventy I was six years old (turning seven only in December), and the music  years that I generally find myself drawn to the most are those from approximately nineteen seventy three to nineteen seventy six. Much of the music on these playlists is pretty commercial pop stuff, and though I usually dislike pretty intensely most pop music, this music has content for me that surpasses its' sound; it indexes a time in my life that carries strong emotional weight, and coincides with a very painful time. This is the period when my parents marriage was falling apart as was I on the inside.
   If you had asked me in my earlier adult life if I would want to listen to music that elicits painful memories, I'm pretty sure that I would have said no, but as I've gotten older I've learned that these associations can help to bring forth things that I had previously consciously forgotten, and having these come to light allows me to look at them, if I choose.
   If someone that I know sees me listening to this kind of music they are generally surprised, and will sometimes say to me, "do you like this music?". If I am asked this, I will usually reply, "I'm not sure, but I know it", and that answer, although sounding somewhat cryptic, is in fact straight to the point.

The single record cover of one of the songs often on my iPhone, circa 1975