santa cruz days

in the evening


in the morning





it's always a bit weird to go to santa cruz. i went to college there, and it's a strange town. when i arrived at the metro station there this past friday, at first i thought, oh, it's so easy here. so relaxed, slower, and sunnier and friendlier than sf. but quickly i remembered what a strange town it is. lazy, upscale and ramshackle, sunny, with flowers pouring out of everyone's yards (except of course when it's raining non-stop and the banana slugs and earthworms are out en masse). so much natural beauty there with the ocean and redwoods. and so much wealth. it's all too much. and then there're all those kids pretending to be, or believing they are, hippies. the campus was (and i'm sure still is) incense and patchouli central.

santa cruz seems mostly the same, but everyone seems so young now! being there the past two days, i kept imagining tromping all over that town at age nineteen, arm in arm with oona or lindy, and trying to see us from my view now. did we look that young? (i'm sure we must have.) i wasn't feeling nostalgic exactly these past two days (though yes, a little wistful). there's so much i don't remember and yet the place seems filled with memories. it was like the ghosts of our younger selves were there. maybe the ghosts of all those college students cycling though is part of what makes that place so weird.