la pura vida

Up until this point, I thought San Diego was Lego Land. Like, literally, I had no idea what was down there. In fact, before this trip, I didn’t even know that San Diego was so far south. And before you say it, I know. I know that “la pura vida” is a phrase used in Costa Rica, but since I’ve never been there, San Diego is the place that will come to mind when I hear that phrase.

The first thing I did when I got here was look for a beach, and boy did I find one. I guess this is Pacific Beach, and it was gorgeous. It was something straight out of a movie. But here’s another thing, the people here were gorgeous too. I don’t know if there’s an inverse relationship between the amount of clothes that people have on and their attractiveness, but there were beautiful people everywhere I looked.

I have a secret obsession with beautiful people because even though they don’t have any responsibility in it and don’t do it consciously, they are able to impact people. Just like Walt Disney did with his amusement parks and J.K. Rowling did with her novels, beautiful people infiltrate us. They force themselves into our lives and make us feel emotions and impart on us a way of life.

Again, there may be an unfair advantage because most people were wearing fewer than 3 articles of clothing. All I’m saying is that it’s entirely possible that the people in San Diego are so attractive because it’s socially acceptable to wear such little clothing. I experienced this first hand. I walked into several stores with only 2 articles of clothing; I probably could have gotten away with just one, but I had to do something with the flip flops. It says somethign cool about a city’s culture when you can walk into an Urban Outfitters shirtless and one of the workers asks if you need help.

One of the things, I really wanted to do on this trip was take a surf lesson. I used to longboard quite a lot, and I heard that surfing was really similar to that, so I figured that this trip was the perfect opportunity to finally try it. My surf instructor was this guy from Ireland who was working here for the summer. He had an adorable Irish accent and beach-blond hair that could only be characteristic of a hard-core surfer. Believe it or not, but I didn’t realize that beach-blonde was actually a thing. For you other luddites out there, the sun actually bleaches your hair so that it gets lighter. Since surfers spend so much time outside, their hair gets super light (blonde) and thin. I had no idea.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any footage — I was busy learning — but I had a really good time, and I picked it up pretty quickly. Since I knew that I was going to try to get a surf lesson when I got down to San Diego, I found a surfer playlist on Spotify, and it really struck a chord with me. For some reason, I totally understood the vibe, and it fit perfectly for my being in San Diego. The pieces began to fit together, and I felt truly immersed.

The only thing that I can say about the culture is that it’s like what happens when you fall off of the surfboard and get knocked into the water. You can either resist the powerful wave’s movement, or you can completely relax and let it do what it wants. I found that allowing the waves to push you — like a ragdoll — in any direction and way it wants was extremely calming. But that’s kind of how I feel San Diego is. You go with the flow because it’s just better that way.

Alas, San Diego is not just a place for naked bodies and sandy beaches. It’s also home to some of the chic-est neighborhoods in SoCal like La Jolla, which is basically an upscale beach town with high-end restaurants, hotels, and art galleries. I loved it here, so I did some exploring and found pink colored alleyways that led down to the beach, where one can sit on cliff-sides and listen to the thundering waves.

La Jolla’s quasi-European vibe had me feeling romantic, so I took a crack at some incredibly amateur poetry. I’ve never really liked writing poetry because I didn’t understand why there were line breaks or how “so much can depend on a red wheel barrow.” But I was starting to understand. I began to see poetry like a picture, freezing emotion and moment in time. While prose is a process, a way of connecting thoughts and ideas, poems capture the feeling instantaneously.

Poems are beautiful because they can never be written at any other time. And if you don’t write it now, you’ll never be able to again. There’s a sense of urgency, and through this necessity, poems are the manifestation of excess passion. There isn’t a truer and more timely way to express yourself.

Here’s a poem that I wrote while sitting on that cliff in the right picture. It’s meaning is sort of lost to me, but I remember that it was significant. I suppose I wanted to communicate a few things, which I’ll talk about after you read it:

So in what seems to be a piece devoid of any intentional syntax, I’ve introduced a few important observations I made on that beach. First of all, I establish a relationship between myself and other people — that they are observing me as I sit on a cliff behind a precautionary railing. The predominant sensory stimulus that is immediately evident is the thunderous crashing waves, and while initially people are impressed with the storm’s majesty, they are quickly drawn back into the comfort of their loved one and quickly forget nature’s narcissistic call.

The piece is titled “Emotional Misattribution” because that’s what people use nature for now. They don’t enjoy nature; if they did, they wouldn’t have to do it with other people. People use nature to make them feel something when the people around them can’t make them feel. We trick ourselves into believing that the awe and amazement that we feel towards the earth’s incredible sights, smells, and sounds are instead some magical pheromones form the person we’re with. There’s no easier way to feel that you love someone than to transfer that inherent love in nature to that person.

And so, I end with the idea that we don’t need to be with another person to feel like we are in good company. It turns out that this was a rather relevant theme for the day because I also happened to eat dinner at a restaurant by myself for the first time in my life. It’s an interesting experience that a lot of writers have talked about, but it was more enjoyable than they typically make it out to be.

I ate at this restaurant in La Jolla called the Hake. I made a reservation for one on Open Table, and when I walked in, the hostess greeted me happily. I told her I had a reservation for 1, and she promptly seated me at a table for 4. The immediate problem that you encounter when you’re eating at a restaurant, even when you’re with other people, is where should you sit; this is no different, however the problem is complicated by the fact that I have no other people making decisions and taking seats that limit my options. Instead, as I follow the hostess to the table, my mind takes an inordinate amount of factors into consideration.

Namely:

• “How awkward would it be if I am sitting alone at a table facing all the other people eating?”
• “If I sit there, all I see is the cashier.”
• “Maybe, I should have sat outside. It’s quite nice out”
• “Wait, it’s kind of a weird vibe because the sidewalk is above the level of the dining area.”
• “I bet it’s weird for the hostess to be seating a 19 year old alone in such a nice restaurant.”

As all this is going on, I pause, and the hostess begins to take away the other 3 place-settings. “Quickly now, I better make a choice before she makes it for me,” I think. Okay, I’ll take the one facing the front of the restaurant and the oddly sunken out-door seating. As I move towards the chosen seat, the hostess corrects her assumption, and leaves me to the whim of my wonderful waitress — who as trained — goes ahead to tell me about a special wine imported from Spain that has notes of “nutmeg and pepper.” She assures me that I can get a taste before making the decision.

I ordered ceviche, ahi fish tacos, and “shaved” ribeye. Oh yea, and I tried to take her up on her wine suggestion, but she asked for my ID, and said she couldn’t serve me that. I had to try, I thought — she did such a brilliant job selling it. Everything was amazing, but perhaps the most memorable dish was the ahi tacos because of a few things:

1. I don’t usually like ahi
2. the tortillas were made of jicama
3. it was one of the most surprising and amazing-tasting dishes I’ve had all summer

Still recovering from an incredibly-enjoyable-dinner-high, I ventured into a psychic reading stand. Here’s the thing, everytime I passed by such establishments, I always wondered, “What kind of person even goes in there?” It’s a fair question, and there must be relatively abundant amount of those people in our world — just judging by the sheer number of psychic reading places I’ve seen.

I walk hesitantly down a long alley way, at the end of which I can see an old lady sitting on a couch and talking to a person hidden behind the frame of the window. As I approach, the two people inside the room take notice of me and seemingly adjust their compsure. I stand in the doorway like sexy guys do in movies when they’re talking to a girl lying on her bed in her room. I say, “So, How much is a reading?” “$35,” she says shamelessly. Utterly shocked, I say “Oh well, that’s too much, I was expecting more like 5 or 10 dollars.” I take notice of the thick stack of $20s right next to her on the couch, and I begin to walk out, almost relieved that I didn’t have to go through such a weird experience.

And that’s when she interrupted. “okay, I do $15?” I conceded and in doing so, replaced the wad of money beside her. I put my hands face up on my lap as she asked for. I don’t remember anything she said because I was too busy thinking that this was a total waste of money and I shoudn’t have done this. As I was thinking about everything that was happening, the old lady asked me to make a wish. I mumbled something about maintaining balance between work life and social life. She said “okay, now put just $5 more in your hands. This is for me to pray for your wishes, and she opens my hands and takes the $5.

Shocked again — this time at my stupidity — I sit in uncomfortable angst, tolerating her royal bullshit. Then as if out of necessity for the extra $5 I unwillingly gave her, she says, “you may ask one more question.” It was clear to me that she could not help me with any of life’s complications, so I thought I would at least try to figure out how she ended up in a career swindling people of their money. I asked her how long she has been doing this and where she is from. Apparently, she’s been practicing “psychic energy” for 37 years and came from Hungary.

I guess, the only thing I can say now is that I know what kind of person goes into those shops: people needing something I didn’t.

The next day, I enjoyed this beautiful view from the trunk of my car while eating a burrito bowl from whole foods (#lifeisgood).

Then, I met up with a friend from UCLA. He’s from San Diego, so he showed me around. We went to a couple beaches

and had dinner at an interesting restaurant called Dick’s Last Resort. It’s a restaurant where bad service is their forte. They give you a hard time when you take too long to order; they yell at you; they don’t look at you when you order, and they make you wear nice hats.

Overall, San Diego was one big surprise, and that’s what I woke up to. When I went into the kitchen, I saw Gabriel’s mom making a beautiful cake. Apparently, a big one like this takes 3 days to make from scratch, and even more if you include outsourcing the edible image on top. She makes cakes professionally, so if you need one done, send me an email, and I’ll hook you up.

What I’ve realized is that the places that I enjoy the most are the places that have a distinct culture in which I can completely immerse myself. A lot of places have a distinct culture, but I’m not always able to feel like I understand what it’s about. San Diego is now a part of who I am, as it is another way of life, another identity for me to assume. As we go through this life experiencing more and more things, each of those things gets pulled into our ever-growing identity. We are ferocious creatures, engulfing everything that we experience, and for good reason. Those of us who have an insatiable appetite for the unknown and novelty, grow richer than the others; our belly protrudes round and full while the other skinny bastards wallow in their cultural malnutrition.