Still Sundays

September 9, 2012

Thoughts on the Bay Area and Photos With Citizen Zain.

 

Words want me to wake up and begin writing. Promptly! It is 5:00 a.m. and I want to wait for it to be light outside. It’s prettier that way, I tell words. Words stare at me on some teleprompter made of dawn. I want to write after yoga today, in a cute café I spotted in a lovely neighborhood in Oakland. Words keep falling; they belong to Time.

So I am up.

Stillness is not a solo performer. Sundays want to last all week too. September 2012 is a backbend to the future.

I want to title this post “Still Sundays from Oakland.” How enticing! But I have zero desire to lure a reader. Let stillness guide.

Besides, what can I offer about Oakland or rest of the Bay Area? I have only been here for a few days.

It’s been a lost-and-found week.

So much of the Bay Area reminds me of other precious places. The hills, the texture of the trees, the misty air, the damp mornings drenched in sunlight, the stacked homes on hills, remind me of Durban and Abbottabad and Lawrence. Except it is not this cool and breezy in Durban save for winters when it does get a little chilly.

Surprise glimpses of water—the marina, the bay, the ocean—from the highways, bridges, and bends through the hills are nothing short of a delight each time. It’s so rejuvenating to be around water. Manhattan is an island and even when I made the effort to be near water it never felt like I was near water.

Prior to now I have visited San Francisco on a few occasions and loved it instantly, the calmer twin of New York,  but I am new to the Bay Area.

So far I have explored a “nicer part” of Richmond, the “Hilltop”; the quaint, sleepy community of Burlingame near the San Francisco airport and towns preceding it; and begun to scratch the surface of the patchwork of distinct, vibrant neighborhoods in Oakland. Oakland reminds me of Philadelphia in some ways except brotherly love is not a myth and people are actually nice because most are happy. Whether they are pleasant because they are checked out due to over consumption of cannabis, or plenty of yoga, or because they are under the spell of beautiful weather and geography, or some combination of all of the above, the fact remains that the people here are so.very.nice. I keep waiting for someone—anyone—to honk while I am driving or when anyone is doing something for which in most big cities the honking police pops to smack you as you exhale, it’s-not-my-fault-you-moron!  Not here. Here unless your driving is outright hazardous people oblige to your wobbly navigation. After all they understand: isn’t it just beautiful out?!

Contrary to popular chatter, we are very nice in New York City thank you very much, but somehow our edges are not as smooth. We always have somewhere to go. Fast.

This is not to say I don’t miss New York City. In fact I very much do. Understanding that the reason “one can make it anywhere if he or she can make it in New York City” probably comes from accepting that there is no place like, nor ever will be, New York, New York.

But I also feel it in every bone of my body that this is where I am supposed to be for now for however long. And knowing that all I have to do is drive 4.5 hours south in order to hug my mother is pure bliss. My precise location remains to be determined since I have family in central, closer to southern, California too.

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I am grateful to my mother who reminds me that most people who buy books don’t read them, they like the idea of having them and this is no different than people who are subscribed to blogs who get posts and yet don’t read the actual content.

“The chances of someone taking the time to actually sit down and read are just slim no matter the content. The teacher in you can’t give people a quiz over what you write! You write, online or otherwise, for that one reader who actually makes time to read with attention,” she says to me.

I explain that since I am now running into readers who have read my writings online, I can’t help but be a bit more cautious as to what I share. I don’t mind offending—truth is often offensive—and I am always careful to respect privacy but I don’t like hurting people because they are where they are in their development and may never evolve beyond where they are in this lifetime.

“You write from the highest place with the best of intentions. That’s all. Besides, remember, most people don’t read,” my mother retorts. She is funny, that woman.

This Sunday I want to put it on the record:

I have zero respect for individuals who are indifferent to sex trafficking. Violence is not an acceptable lifestyle even though many people are subjected to it daily. I am not afraid; I am livid that violence is acceptable, something to be put aside as long as it is not happening to oneself. There are places and vocations which demand disassociation to survive; most cities in America do not rise to that level yet people sever that reality all too easily.  

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I am grateful that my brother Zain, popularly known as Citizen Zain around these parts, was able to coordinate some time for me given his busy schedule between teaching yoga and DJ sessions.

We talked about relationships, gender identities and sexual preferences around the Bay Area.

It is not anti-gay rights to have a monogamous heterosexual preference!

Moreover, people’s fixation on gender—maleness or femaleness—unfortunately often circumvents the actual reality of masculine and feminine energies which exist in both men and women and have very little to do with designated roles as we know them.

Zain said, “People have this idealization of liberalism. Lack of boundaries dilutes pure, raw love.”

Then we talked about how much I loved all the vintage thrift stores around Oakland and Berkeley. And Zain said, “Yes, they are nice, but if all the style is in reaction to how people dress in LA, “vintage anti-LA”, then it really isn’t all that cool if that’s why everyone is doing it.”

This reminded me of when Jamie said, and I am paraphrasing here, that counter-culture is less of a creative risk if a major cable network has made it cool first. More precisely, “Nobody knows what the next thing is because it’s till being created. A ‘scene’ is the end product of lots of disparate things coming together. By then, the creativity has already left the building, so to speak.”  

This notion of ‘let’s all be different TOGETHER!’… sigh …online is only a reflection of everything else.

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Well, the sun is up. I can only imagine what is in store if words wanted to be placed together before Sunday officially began.

The unknown is filled with possibilities if one is not afraid.

 

I share some photos.

 

A flying bicycle next to Zain’s apartment in Oakland.

 

Some photos with Citizen Zain at the Rock Paper Scissors Collective in Oakland for KALX radio station’s 50th anniversary!

 

 

It was a thrill to see him in action. His energy is palpable and just like in yoga, in music too he offers an experience, beyond yoga, beyond music.

 

In Piedmont neighborhood I discovered a very cool vintage store among other very lovely independent boutiques…

 

…where these cameras thrilled me because I just love old things.

 

I enjoyed this seagull tap dance around Lake Merritt neighborhood in Oakland.

 

The view from north Berkeley overlooking the Marina and Bay is breathtaking. It was very special to sit up there quietly and note the union of so many opposing forces of nature.

 

I am grateful for an incredibly gifted brother who continues to amaze me and inspire many.

 

 

 

Note: Since there are five Sundays in September, next Sunday I will be away from playing with words in stillness. Gratitude for reading.