California has a strange allure. A combination of the final frontier mindset and spectacular scenery and weather. And for a long time it was the land of the new and boundless opportunities. No wonder people refer to Hotel California. I also often thought that Californians were permanent expats of a kind, they may reside in America but simultaneously it's not the America of the rest of the United States, so they're a permanently unanchored people in a state that attracts unanchored people, a refuge from the normality of the rest of the country.
I had a moment of reflection walking in a local semi-wild park enclosing a reservoir and old railroad tracks in my eastern suburb that I'd known ever since a child. The woods were riddled with bike paths for teenagers and a few cave-like spots where they could sneak cigarettes and beer but it's now been taken over by the environmentalists and made properly pastoral with ecologically approved trails and wetland restoration and teenagers these days jog and abstain from everything. But it was early spring, the land was coming alive once more, just it had always done every year regardless of joggers, dirt bikers, the railroads, the Indians. Nature is real. Mankind perhaps is not. We are ephemeral, here today and gone tomorrow meanwhile the surf will still crash onto the shores of California and the trees will still bud and the ferns begin to unfurl, year after year, and will do so long after the last human has disappeared. When you admire a gorgeous scenery, you cannot help but be reminded of man's ephemeral status, just as you cannot help but feel there is a truth in the beauty and power of nature that we humans deny with our civilizational angst over what should be is true and just. It's a strange feeling and typically for humans, we don't let it last long.
This was great. I’m intrigued by the Kingsnorth reference. I’d love to listen to a conversation between the two of you and see if anything fun and novel emerges between his critique of “The Machine” and your obvious love of machines and motors.
So wild to have grown up in the same places 4 years behind you and to read your experiences now as you revisit after discovering your writing through Shopcraft. Thank you for all of your work, but especially these kind of reflections which have a strong pull on my memories and affections for this strange place called California.
Thanks for this beautiful evocation of the Other California--which is your Other California, both past and present, yet is also recognizably mine and all of ours at the same time.
I'm moved by your handling of the motif of . . . homecoming. You conjure up a mood that combines nostalgia and discovery, while anchoring the mood in a precisely and hauntingly rendered experience. This experience, in turn, is itself rooted in an appreciation (also well-rendered) of the interplay of nature and culture, of the human and the supra-human, in the physical-spiritual landscape of the Other California. Last but not least, the whole thing is seasoned with just the right dosage of wit and self-deprecating humor.
Another reason your piece speaks to me is biographical: I'm of the same generation as you, also grew up in the Bay Area (though on the Peninsula), and have likewise recently returned there after many years away. Since January, 2020, I've been living and working in Menlo Park, just up the road from my hometown of Palo Alto, and I find myself, yes, appalled by the Siliconvalleyfication of my native place, but also intoxicated by a feeling of homecoming (in spite of that just-mentioned transformation). It helps that my mom grew up in Palo Alto and that my dad's family has been around here since the early 1850's.
That leads me to a final remark. Your account of your road trip reminded me of many forays into the Other California that I enjoyed as a child. But it also reminded me of the just barely submerged presence of that Other California in what are once again my own immediate surroundings. The local neighborhoods are so beautiful. They're also still surprisingly full of pre-Silicon Valley landmarks. Some of them are very much alive, like Feldman's Bookstore in downtown Menlo Park.
I'm sold on this road trip! My bag is packed. When do we leave?
You wrote recently that the low vision of humanity the ruling class has is that we're stupid, obsolete, fragile, and hateful. A tumble with the Pacific seems to cure all four of these ills at once.
Thank you for writing. It's always a delight to get something from Matthew B Crawford in my inbox.
Thank you for your beautiful words and the memories - a pleasant escape from the Matrix - and a reminder that “our soul by living well begins to be a living soul.” (Augustine in Confessions).
“Then God said: Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that dry land may appear … God called the dry land “earth,” and the basin of water he called “sea.” God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:9-10.
The peculiar way surfers have of saying goodbye: See you in the water! Or describing a day on the waves: Getting wet. That odd euphoria is so compelling, it's hard to believe it's anything but purely physiological. When things are good on the water, they are really really good. I have always wondered if that special combination of pursuit and pleasure in water derives from some hidden human history.
Maybe Unherd could get you and Kingsnorth together...and I'd suggest adding Martin Shaw to the mix. I think that would make for a fun and interesting conversation.
The Ranch was legendary when I was a kid in the 70s 80s growing up in SLO. Not a locals only type place, but a secret pilgrimage for the surf minded (not I, having been caught in a riptide off Catalina as a kid, never to go back in).
But Cables, Sewers, Pipes, Hazard all had their own following among various coastal tribes, mine being the locals only Hazards, another mean rip tide with a rocky shore break, but when caught right, a stunning set of 10' breakers. I would watch my friends bob while waiting to catch a good ride. Not for us the family friendly Pismo and Avila, though they were both good for bonfires late at night.
I don't go down there anymore, my son having finished at Poly and everyone else decamping for other states. I do miss the coast being so close though, a place to stare and dream.
A delightful article. By coincidence I have just returned to the rather arid part of Spain I now live in from a visit to my son and family in Portola Valley where I reacquainted myself with deep deciduous woodland. That felt a bit like a homecoming despite not being quite the same as that of old England.
California has a strange allure. A combination of the final frontier mindset and spectacular scenery and weather. And for a long time it was the land of the new and boundless opportunities. No wonder people refer to Hotel California. I also often thought that Californians were permanent expats of a kind, they may reside in America but simultaneously it's not the America of the rest of the United States, so they're a permanently unanchored people in a state that attracts unanchored people, a refuge from the normality of the rest of the country.
I had a moment of reflection walking in a local semi-wild park enclosing a reservoir and old railroad tracks in my eastern suburb that I'd known ever since a child. The woods were riddled with bike paths for teenagers and a few cave-like spots where they could sneak cigarettes and beer but it's now been taken over by the environmentalists and made properly pastoral with ecologically approved trails and wetland restoration and teenagers these days jog and abstain from everything. But it was early spring, the land was coming alive once more, just it had always done every year regardless of joggers, dirt bikers, the railroads, the Indians. Nature is real. Mankind perhaps is not. We are ephemeral, here today and gone tomorrow meanwhile the surf will still crash onto the shores of California and the trees will still bud and the ferns begin to unfurl, year after year, and will do so long after the last human has disappeared. When you admire a gorgeous scenery, you cannot help but be reminded of man's ephemeral status, just as you cannot help but feel there is a truth in the beauty and power of nature that we humans deny with our civilizational angst over what should be is true and just. It's a strange feeling and typically for humans, we don't let it last long.
This was great. I’m intrigued by the Kingsnorth reference. I’d love to listen to a conversation between the two of you and see if anything fun and novel emerges between his critique of “The Machine” and your obvious love of machines and motors.
So wild to have grown up in the same places 4 years behind you and to read your experiences now as you revisit after discovering your writing through Shopcraft. Thank you for all of your work, but especially these kind of reflections which have a strong pull on my memories and affections for this strange place called California.
Hi, Matt:
Thanks for this beautiful evocation of the Other California--which is your Other California, both past and present, yet is also recognizably mine and all of ours at the same time.
I'm moved by your handling of the motif of . . . homecoming. You conjure up a mood that combines nostalgia and discovery, while anchoring the mood in a precisely and hauntingly rendered experience. This experience, in turn, is itself rooted in an appreciation (also well-rendered) of the interplay of nature and culture, of the human and the supra-human, in the physical-spiritual landscape of the Other California. Last but not least, the whole thing is seasoned with just the right dosage of wit and self-deprecating humor.
Another reason your piece speaks to me is biographical: I'm of the same generation as you, also grew up in the Bay Area (though on the Peninsula), and have likewise recently returned there after many years away. Since January, 2020, I've been living and working in Menlo Park, just up the road from my hometown of Palo Alto, and I find myself, yes, appalled by the Siliconvalleyfication of my native place, but also intoxicated by a feeling of homecoming (in spite of that just-mentioned transformation). It helps that my mom grew up in Palo Alto and that my dad's family has been around here since the early 1850's.
That leads me to a final remark. Your account of your road trip reminded me of many forays into the Other California that I enjoyed as a child. But it also reminded me of the just barely submerged presence of that Other California in what are once again my own immediate surroundings. The local neighborhoods are so beautiful. They're also still surprisingly full of pre-Silicon Valley landmarks. Some of them are very much alive, like Feldman's Bookstore in downtown Menlo Park.
Thanks again, Matt, for writing and posting this.
Warmly,
Adrian
Dear Matthew,
I'm sold on this road trip! My bag is packed. When do we leave?
You wrote recently that the low vision of humanity the ruling class has is that we're stupid, obsolete, fragile, and hateful. A tumble with the Pacific seems to cure all four of these ills at once.
Thank you for writing. It's always a delight to get something from Matthew B Crawford in my inbox.
Thank you for your beautiful words and the memories - a pleasant escape from the Matrix - and a reminder that “our soul by living well begins to be a living soul.” (Augustine in Confessions).
“Then God said: Let the water under the sky be gathered into a single basin, so that dry land may appear … God called the dry land “earth,” and the basin of water he called “sea.” God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:9-10.
The peculiar way surfers have of saying goodbye: See you in the water! Or describing a day on the waves: Getting wet. That odd euphoria is so compelling, it's hard to believe it's anything but purely physiological. When things are good on the water, they are really really good. I have always wondered if that special combination of pursuit and pleasure in water derives from some hidden human history.
California coastal road trips are priceless.
This was terrific, thanks.
Ditto Galen's suggestion.
Maybe Unherd could get you and Kingsnorth together...and I'd suggest adding Martin Shaw to the mix. I think that would make for a fun and interesting conversation.
The Ranch was legendary when I was a kid in the 70s 80s growing up in SLO. Not a locals only type place, but a secret pilgrimage for the surf minded (not I, having been caught in a riptide off Catalina as a kid, never to go back in).
But Cables, Sewers, Pipes, Hazard all had their own following among various coastal tribes, mine being the locals only Hazards, another mean rip tide with a rocky shore break, but when caught right, a stunning set of 10' breakers. I would watch my friends bob while waiting to catch a good ride. Not for us the family friendly Pismo and Avila, though they were both good for bonfires late at night.
I don't go down there anymore, my son having finished at Poly and everyone else decamping for other states. I do miss the coast being so close though, a place to stare and dream.
A lovely change of topic! Kudos.
The land (and Ocean) persist in spite of the Lilliputians.
A delightful article. By coincidence I have just returned to the rather arid part of Spain I now live in from a visit to my son and family in Portola Valley where I reacquainted myself with deep deciduous woodland. That felt a bit like a homecoming despite not being quite the same as that of old England.