Arriving to San Francisco via the Bay Brigde is amazing.
As if the city were standing there to meet and welcome those who cross the bridge, with the incredible beauty of its skyscrapers.
So good to be in the city. A new friend Lydia gave me a small painting on wood she found earlier that day,
it says: the city is my sweetheart.
The emotions of seeing Diana and Natascha after all these years. Emphasized by Diana’s impressive U-turn crossing a double yellow line, when she saw us standing in front of the bus station.
A beautiful weekend. A strange territorial ritual on Treasure Island, indecent exposure as Natascha prefers to say. Our most impressive supermarket experience (the biggest fruits and vegetables of all kinds and variations imaginable) so far, in Berkeley. Amazing food (ah the perfect risotto we made – despite what Diana and me were doing in the kitchen – the wonderful American breakfast, the delightful Taqueria Cancun Maria and i stumbled upon) and even better company.
Exploring and enchanted by the mission.
Watching the L-word with a community, in the Lexington Club. Ah Rutvica, you should have been there, you were there – Natascha and i got you a little something. This episode was a strong anti-Bush one – Bette gets to do an impassioned speech at a court hearing on how moral issues in this country are used as a smoke screen to avoid talking about poverty and economic injustice, the education system in ruins and the illegitimate war. I couldn’t help noticing that the lovely L-crowd only began sheering when the war was mentioned. A reflection of how much more difficult it is to raise awareness and mobilize politically around issues on the homefront?
Lots of visible poverty. Friends back in Europe haven’t really asked yet about the extent of the poverty in this country, as they sometimes do when i travel to so-called third world countries. Strange, these distinctions. This is the so-called first world, and the poverty in the streets hits you in the face. And while there are in fact many homeless people in Santa Cruz, it’s in an urban environment like inner city San Francisco that the extent of the break-down of social systems of security, welfare and care becomes clear. The extent and visibility of structural poverty makes you gasp for air. All those bodies marked and modified by not having enough good food to eat, by having slept in the streets too many times, by having been denied access to useful education.
And somehow i find it less tough to be here than the social environment of Santa Cruz cushioned with privilege. The truth of what Sahar wrote, about living in Harlem almost the Bronx: “Poor and dirty… but psychologically less alienating than let’s say Stockholm 🙂 or even East Manhattan. Kind of familiar… strange that one doesn’t feel best when in conditions next to “ideal” she imagines for all humans… Maybe due to knowing that most humans live way far from that…” This strong need to be connected to where injustice and inequality is not covered up: this is where we are, this is where we stand and must start from, and let nobody tell any damn lies about it.