I stepped outside my front door at the crack of midday today, finally surfacing from my New Year's Day slumber. I looked at the shiny street - wet with last night's rain. I took in the sight of the bright green grass that sits upon Billy Goat Hill. I looked out at the deserted 30th street, smiling as I exhaled. As soon as my breath left my lips, it turned into fog. Zipping up my furry jacket and pulling up my hood, I realized... this was the first cold New Year's Day I have ever had. I welcomed in 2011 at a house party in two friend's adjoined apartments in the Outer Richmond, San Francisco. The room where the countdown took place, faced Golden Gate Park and there were pretty fireworks exploding over the vista of our densely populated city. About 40 people crammed in the living room of a relatively small apartment, (most of them) special to me for one reason or another. We lifted our glasses of champagne as we sang, cheers'd & hugged. It really reminded me how much my life has changed in twelve months. What a difference a year makes.
Rewind back to this day last year.
I woke up in a backpacker's hostel in Kings Cross, Sydney. The room smelled like ... backpacks... and the streets were loud with the sounds of drunken foreigners. The night before, I was standing on the 18th storey observation deck of a Darling Point apartment block overlooking Sydney Harbour. I was working with the family I now live with in San Francisco, on their Australian vacation. We were at the house party/BBQ of a Canadian man and his Japanese wife (who kept the Jewish faith and lived in Australia). The house was full of cute little Japanese kids watching Pokemon in actual Japanese. I was accompanying my two British/American charges (then 3 & 6 yrs old) who had no idea how to interact with kids speaking Japanese, let alone muster up the will to watch hours of a foreign cartoon. As the Japanese-Australian kids laughed in unison at the television, Max, Alex & I sat there blinking. I imagined that while the Japanese kids laughed at the TV, our minds were blank... then a tumbleweed rolled through our collective subconscious and crickets started chirping. Soon enough, we started playing Lego & before we knew it we were on the roof watching the Sydney Harbour Bridge light up and the night sky fill with smoke. On this day, last year, I was nomadic. I hadn't owned a bed in at least two months (I sold my bunk beds to 4 teenage boys on eBay for $30). When I did have a bedroom, it had been all but packed up for six months. I packed my room up in a fit of frustration in June 2009, knowing that I was on a journey to somewhere... I just had no idea where. It was in November that I learned that this mystery land would be San Francisco.
I woke up in a backpacker's hostel in Kings Cross, Sydney. The room smelled like ... backpacks... and the streets were loud with the sounds of drunken foreigners. The night before, I was standing on the 18th storey observation deck of a Darling Point apartment block overlooking Sydney Harbour. I was working with the family I now live with in San Francisco, on their Australian vacation. We were at the house party/BBQ of a Canadian man and his Japanese wife (who kept the Jewish faith and lived in Australia). The house was full of cute little Japanese kids watching Pokemon in actual Japanese. I was accompanying my two British/American charges (then 3 & 6 yrs old) who had no idea how to interact with kids speaking Japanese, let alone muster up the will to watch hours of a foreign cartoon. As the Japanese-Australian kids laughed in unison at the television, Max, Alex & I sat there blinking. I imagined that while the Japanese kids laughed at the TV, our minds were blank... then a tumbleweed rolled through our collective subconscious and crickets started chirping. Soon enough, we started playing Lego & before we knew it we were on the roof watching the Sydney Harbour Bridge light up and the night sky fill with smoke. On this day, last year, I was nomadic. I hadn't owned a bed in at least two months (I sold my bunk beds to 4 teenage boys on eBay for $30). When I did have a bedroom, it had been all but packed up for six months. I packed my room up in a fit of frustration in June 2009, knowing that I was on a journey to somewhere... I just had no idea where. It was in November that I learned that this mystery land would be San Francisco.
I boarded a plane to LAX on March 7, 2010. I waved goodbye to my wonderful family and my most dear friend, Nichy Nott. I was holding my tiny premature niece, Maggie, in my arms right up until I had to board the plane. She was four weeks old. Still, I didn't cry. I wasn't even that nervous. I do have a heart, and I do feel things... but I knew that this was how it was supposed to be. That peace made all the difference. 14 hours later, I was running through the streets of Los Angeles with my life in a suitcase and a girl named Veronica. We were running for our plane to New York, which we only made by cutting the security line and literally running to our seats on the American Airlines 747. After a hilariously dull week at Nanny School in the bustling Metropolis of Oakdale, Long Island, I was on my way home to San Francisco. The home I had never been to before.
Coming up to a year later, SF is still my home. I have watched spring become summer, summer become... fog... fog become... 'Indian Summer', 'Indian Summer' become Winter and Winter being just as cold as summer. Mark Twain once said, 'The coldest winter I ever had was a summer in San Francisco'. I have made friends with some of the most wonderful, interesting, culturally & spiritually diverse people. I have crossed the USA West-East at least 6 times to; New York, Florida, Washington DC, Virginia & Maryland. I Amtrak-ed to Nevada for Christmas where I spent it with my ex-housemate and dear friend, Fania Espinoza and saw more guns than my eyes could take in. Then I used a shotgun to blast glitter-filled bullets into the desert sky. I went to London in the summer, and spent it in Notting Hill then traveling out to a Castle in the Devon countryside. I have given in to the San Franciscan health-crazy, ingredient-reading, vitamin-taking culture. I am a vegan; my body, a bunch of animals and the planet thank me for it. I've learned my way driving around the back-streets, city grid & neighborhoods of San Francisco. I've stood in crowds of weed-smoking hipsters, smile from ear-to-ear, watching bands that fill the 16GBs of space on my iPod, playing before my very eyes (NB: I wasn't smoking the weed.) I've been a perpetual stranger on the road, just like Jack Kerouac. I've sat in my room by myself playing my Maton Guitar singing songs to God by candle light. I've learned the skills to socially survive in cultural climates that are foreign to that of which I am accustomed. I have savored the times I have spent pondering life while listening to Death Cab for Cutie & walking down the street, wishing I could tell stories like Benjamin Gibbard. Yet, I have the most wonderful group of friends who like drinking tea on rooftops, jamming with guitars & ukuleles, telling stories around bonfires, watching Disney cartoon classics, going on road trips and having the most ridiculously themed parties. I have friends that I can hang out with when my mind, body & spirit are exhausted from my day-to-day life. We don't need conversation. We just watch YouTube videos, and that's enough. Even when they are make-up tutorials about how to apply 6 pairs of fake eyelashes. Even when these friends are boys.
But, meanwhile, back in Australia life goes on without me. My parents email me every day and I constantly am behind with my replies (Sorry Mum). My Mum cries every time we Skype. My niece, Maggie, is crawling around and has teeth and is almost celebrating her first birthday. My Grandparents grow older, and as their health fails, my heart is always happy when I look in my mailbox and see a real-life letter from my beautiful Grandma, on old-school airmail paper with ducks on it. My brother is as hilarious as ever, his sons are growing up to be little characters and he & his wife are strong through various adversities that life throws at them. My sister and I talk on Skype & she follows her 2 yr old son Joe around the house with the laptop so he can show me things and play trains with me. I like to take Skype snapshots of her when she makes weird faces, then post them on Facebook. Nichy, my best friend, and her husband Dan have moved back from London and gotten back into the daily grind of Brisbane city. They still celebrate Christmas Eve with the air conditioning on freezing cold, hot chocolates, Santa hats & watching Elf & Home Alone. I miss each and every one of my family members, and my dear friends in Australia. I miss the familiarity & relaxed nature of going to my parents house to swim in their pool, make dinner with them, listen to them yell at the dogs, watch their big TV and open their fridge to take inventory of their food and what I could possibly take back to my house. But I am not homesick, I really haven't been yet. Life for me is here in San Francisco, at least for the next little while.
So, to 2011. What do I want from this year? I could be completely transparent & shallow and just say I want to meet the man of my dreams - a grizzly, Jesus-following hipster with a beard and a love for guitars and coffee... six foot tall with eyes like the ocean... and American citizenship, which he may be willing to share. Yes, I do want that, you got me there. But what I want more, is to give my best to this year. To be less into what I want & more in tune with what I can do to make other people's lives better. I want to take up my battle-scarred green metallic covered Bible and read the CRAP outta its pages. (If you've ever seen this Bible, you'd know what it means to be battle-scarred. Its so beat-up, scratched & even has nail-holes in it from a pair of boots I once owned with exposed nails in the soles. I used my Bible as a hammer. I know that's not a very Holy thing to do with a Bible. To live life with me, my books have to be tough, so its only fitting that my Bible have a metal cover to protect its life-giving words inside.) I want to set more time aside to spend in the presence of the God who made me, keeps me & legitimately cares about what I do. I don't know who, if anyone, will read this. But you may not think God cares about you as a person, but he does. I know that cos I know God. If he didn't care, then He isn't God and the whole Bible is a sham. If the whole Bible is a sham, then Jesus & God couldn't have changed my life like they did and truthfully, dead liars don't heal the sick and change the world. You can believe what you want to though, and the fact remains that I'll never cram my battle-scarred Bible down your throat or bash you over the head with it. I respect that our brains & beliefs may be different. I'll just carry on living my life with my buddy, Jesus.
2011, be good to me. I intend to be good to you in return.
PS: I dedicate the songs I will write this year to JC & FH.
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