Curiosity Roving : V.19 : Gold Rush
Curiosity Roving
The Grand Adventures of L Rose Goossen
V.19 : Gold Rush
in which we love California
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Greetings and Salutations!
Welcome to the nineteenth volume of Curiosity Roving. I thank you kindly for your attention. If you're a new subscriber, a special thank you for joining me on this odyssey. All of my past letters are archived for posterity and you can read them here: https://tinyletter.com/curiosity_roving/archive
In the time since my last newsletter, I have completed the first leg of my winter drift, alongside many other feathered friends. I've seen the Pacific and its dolphins, the Miramar dog park of Redondo Beach, the Chain of Lakes in Golden Gate Park, the Bay Bridge at midnight, the cheeky fog-swathed moon of SOMA, and a jaywalker nearly killed by traffic when making a jaunt across Beale Street. I've been exposed as a Canadian by the way I pronounce "no doubt". I've taken one bus in the wrong direction, made two road trips between SF and LA, chanted kirtan at Bhakti, sweat through live music yoga with Yemanjo at HAUM, stoked the disco inferno at Make Out Room's Diva Love dance party with DJ Brain Robber, stumbled into karaoke with DJ Purple and his saxophone at Slate, strolled Andy Goldsworthy's Wood Line in the Presidio, pondered whether or not We Are The Medicine in Topanga Canyon, eaten four decadent lunches at LinkedIn, absorbed the aesthetic of Patrick Watson at the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, and cleansed my pineal gland and auric field with ceremonial snuff tobacco that was blasted three times into my nasal cavity by some very kind, gentle, and generous people. Yesterday I saw an otherwise respectable-looking young man sprawled on the concrete next to a taco truck at midday, wailing to the skies above, and for the briefest of moments thought to myself, "yeah buddy same, honestly."
honey, it's anything butThe I-5 freeway served me the experiences of both the slowest and fastest driving that I have ever done; it took three hours to get out of LA after an accident blocked three lanes of traffic, so I blasted the rest of that road at one hundred miles per hour without incident or consequence. Fuel economy be damned - sometimes a girl just has to go faster.
In the sixth century, Greek philosopher Heraclitus proposed that you cannot step in the same river twice; the movement of the water creates a new river in every moment. In the same way, you can never return to the same city - but it's less of a river and more of an infinite Rubik's Cube. The interlocking pieces of a complex urban ecosystem shift and slide in one's absence, and even after weeks of turning in circles, they never line up quite the same as before.
eucalyptus cathedral
I spent a significant stretch of time in this area three years ago - right before the plague. I had thought that I might try to live here. That desire has evaporated, but the love remains.
California is a lot of things. A coastal paradise, a producer of culture, a consumer hotbed, a gaudy playground of the wealthy, a social experiment, a limited time offer, basically Mexico, the cutting-edge razor of the West. I've spent the last few weeks questioning what it is that people love so much about this place.
Standing in the scorched parking lot of an EZ Trip travel centre, I posed the question to Vladimir. He had just arrived in the open air, having immigrated from southwestern Russia with one thousand dollars to his name and then lingered through fifty-one days of detainment in a border control facility. I was holding the first product he purchased on American soil, a warm and heavy box of Cinnabon, while he removed his coat. Vladimir spoke elegant lyceum English, but his conclusion was silent: one arm gestured to the sky, two eyes squinted against the sun.
midday mirageSure, every migrating bird knows that California has the good weather. The Mediterranean climate makes this region the pipe dream within the American dream; take one standard-issue white picket fence with all the trimmings, then gild the lily, cross the highway, and learn to surf. A lesser-known fact is that this same climate has made the state home to the greatest variety of plant and animal species to be found anywhere in the USA, many of which are imperiled or already gone due to rampant development.
On Sunday morning, I sat in a tall chair at the top of a cliff and slowly solved a crossword puzzle in the Sonoma County Gazette while drinking a coffee that was strong enough to peel paint. The theme of this crossword was the lakes and reservoirs of California. A disturbing pattern emerged in the clues: "shrinking", "dried up", "former", "endangered".
On the opposing page was a lifestyle article exploring the rarely-vaunted paradigm of pronoia (bear with me now, we're looping back to ancient Greece) in which a person chooses to believe that all elements are conspiring in one's favour; a functional opposite to paranoia, or a sort of radical optimism.
On the opposing page was a lifestyle article exploring the rarely-vaunted paradigm of pronoia (bear with me now, we're looping back to ancient Greece) in which a person chooses to believe that all elements are conspiring in one's favour; a functional opposite to paranoia, or a sort of radical optimism.
hope is not a birdIt's one thing to have sunshine. It's quite another to have happiness, hope, levity, daring, brilliance, resilience, and the will to try. I am convinced that there is a link between climate and prevailing demeanour, that people are shaped by the places we inhabit. When it's already assumed that your region will eventually be 1) reduced to rubble by the next big earthquake, 2) consumed by wildfire, or 3) taken to the cleaners by the rising tide, then there's really nothing to do but kick back, run a glass of water that's traveled 700 miles from some dwindling glacier, think happy thoughts, and stay hydrated.
Of everyone I know in California, the majority were not born and raised here. The wild west has always belonged to the seeker, the rebel, the outlaw, and those prone to pronoia; it still does today. Anyone who chooses to be here is, in their own way, chasing the dream within a dream. On the strength of this characteristic alone, I am prepared to forgive California any and all of its trespasses. Even the urine stench in every concrete corner, the vampiric expenses, and those dorky lanyards that now seem to be flapping from half of San Francisco.
game onMy darling reader, thank you for joining me today and in this lifetime. If you ever want to respond to my letters, know that I welcome you. Don't forget to let your breath breathe your body, and don't forget to notice when it does. Go outside and say hello to the doggies. Open your eyes and see the world - it's always available. Remember that wisdom might come clothed in nothing but a trenchcoat, and if you get even the briefest of indelible flashes, that's a pretty good day.
Until next time, stay curious. -- Rose
Until next time, stay curious. -- Rose
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