The air is filled with smoke again today. Yesterday it was clearer. We thought maybe that was the beginning of the end of this. But it’s back again and everything is still. Even as I am in the middle of the city on a Friday, there are no cars going by, no faint sound of the train. The birds don’t chirp and there is no sight of anyone walking the blocked-off streets. Even the tree outside of our second story is motionless, as if everything is already dead. Not the death we think of in its decaying process, but the death that is the most terrifying: motionless, devoid of anything, is nothingness itself. 

The California fires grow worse every year. I remember Wim saying that they were contained up to 35 percent yesterday as if that was a good thing… and we took it as a good thing because we need hope. But that is hardly enough to keep our forests and the beautiful land that makes up this state. There are too many people here in the Bay. Everything is too expensive. When my parents bought their first home in their 40s they felt like they were late in the game. We are in our 40s and without an inheritance, there is no chance of us buying anything anytime soon. At least, not in California. Even as it burns. Our home state. We both have tried to live in other parts of the country. Ironically, nobody wants Californians in their state. It’s ironic, because the reason California is so expensive is because everyone from everywhere else comes to live here. It’s a strange thing to have state pride. Texans have so much state pride. Wim lived there while getting his engineering degree. They really hated him just for the sake of being from California. Most Texans came to California during the Dust Bowl. More came for the California gold rush. It’s all really silly. We’re supposed to be the UNITED States. I don’t think it’s possible for all of us to get along in such a gigantic land mass. There are so many variations of perspectives, given which part of the world you reside in. How can we all possibly have the same view? Perhaps it would be better if we all split up, and then America can stop being such a monster of the world. I guess it’s not “patriotic” to suggest such a thing. Another idiotic ideology. Pride is a fool's claim. Unity should override pride. But how can it, if pride blinds unity? We are being set up to fight against each other. And it’s working. 

Between COVID, riots and the fires, people are beginning to flee California. We have thought about leaving too, but we have both moved around the country so many times that we have learned that you just start from scratch only to discover a whole new set of problems. It generally takes three years to become acclimated to a new place. That can become frustrating when you are attempting to master your life. Always the ingénue, never the master… as your life’s wisdom disintegrates inside your chest and leaves a fire burning in your heart. Never getting to see the whole equal to the sum of its parts. Always missing the entirety of your potential. 

I have traveled everywhere looking for work and education. When I was 22 I moved to Orlando, Florida. I couldn’t find any work in my hometown in California and I couldn’t afford to go to school. No one would co-sign for loans, I was too young for financial aid and with no job, I needed to get out, or get in, somewhere. I have lived in Orlando, Orange County, LA, Hawaii, Chico, CA (born and raised and twice again), and Oakland. My partner Wim has lived in Claremont (twice), Santa Rosa, San Francisco, Austin and Oakland, which he said he had to fight to get back into after living in Texas. I had to fight to get back to California as well. It’s not easy getting back once you're out. Traveling can sound exciting, and there is an element of that, but moving that much can run you down and burn a hole in your expenses fast. Now, we face another potential move. Where this time? And how? 

Meeting new people can drain a person… “What do you do?”...  I have always hated that question because I have never liked my answer. It’s meant to help people to get to know you better, but when I answer “bartender” or “waitress”, I never feel that these represent anything about who I am. Unless you define a person by their survival techniques. What a person chooses to do and has to do to survive are very different. Maybe what people should ask each other is what opportunities have you had? Then I could say, I have been poor and have had no hand outs. I learned how to bartend so I could pursue something greater. I got myself into Berkeley by making many sacrifices, thinking that maybe then I could feel respected. But that’s too long an answer. And perhaps it sounds pretentious. I can’t tell anymore. Besides, no one will respect me once they find out I got a degree in Art. Most degrees are bullshit these days anyway. You need a Masters or PHD to really make a dent in the stone. Even then, education is a slippery slope. Everything is what YOU make of it, they’ll tell you. It’s not true, really. It’s luck and likability. So many times I was told I was really talented by professors, but they gave the grants to the kids who kissed ass. One of the mean girls, who gossiped about people she was intimated by, was the most favored. I was so surprised to see this happening as if we were in 8th grade all over again. Americans are still in their teenage-hood. 

* * *

I got my notary license and loan signing certificate this year during the pandemic. It’s an essential job. I bought all of the supplies, a bit of an expensive investment, but an endeavor that has 60+ years of surety. I also have friends that have been doing this their whole life. One of my girlfriends and her husband have been working as loan signing agents for 20 years. Another example of luck. She filed paperwork at the escrow company her step mother worked at while we were in high school. Then she learned how to process loan documents. At 19 she dropped out of Jr. College and moved to San Diego and got hired at a hundred thousand a year. Of course I asked her if she could get me a job, but there wasn’t a place for me, even though it doesn’t take an education. It seems that the real money-making careers never do. 

I took my first assignment the other day. As I was printing the documents I began to feel the sensation of regret wash over me. The documents were a “ream” of paper, or 500 pages. Ream sounds like the right word. There is so much to know…so many documents change with every contract. There I was again, an ingénue at 41, and hardly any of my experience in life viable. The clients had a two million dollar home. They were my age. They felt the need to tell me this is their 4th time refinancing and that their house has tripled in value since they have lived there. I am happy for them. They remodeled the house and it looks perfectly imagined out of an architectural magazine: Grey/blue walls, white trim and hardwood floors. 85% of houses look like this in the bay. 

“No kids for you?” They asked me. 

“No, not this time around.” I’ve been too poor my whole life to bring a child into the chaos. “I didn’t meet the right partner until I was 38. We are in our 40’s now and want to travel and own property.” This is true. 

They make five hundred thousand dollars each time they refi. They're both executives of their own companies. I’m sure most of the income they make is really from owning a house in the Bay. When I lived in Orange County, everyone there was in real estate. Even today, everyone I meet who is financially successful owns property.

The sun is beginning to come out. As I look into the hills, the smoke lifts by the end of the day. That is when we can go for our walks. The streets are blocked off in our neighborhood and a lot of people are talking about keeping it this way. I think that’s a nice idea. It has been cheerful, amongst the terror, to see people out on their bikes and walking with their children and dogs. People do chalk drawing in the street. I know a lot of people work really hard out here, and some hardly ever had the chance to enjoy their home when having to commute into the city. I used to make that commute myself. Steamy sardine Bart filets at 8 and 4:50. The car ride is no better. Two hours on a 14 mile stretch is cranium pressure torture. That’s just one-way, and it started at 6:50am and ended at 8pm. So even if you decided to get a drink after work to let it die down, so did everyone else. How could I ever think about having children in this madness? Who would raise them? That's the best part, and I would have to hand it off to someone else. They would always feel that disconnection. And do we really need to be creating more disconnection? I think it’s reached its max. 

The roads are clear now—another good thing that has come from this pandemic. It’s clear everywhere. It’s how I remember it in my 20s. I hope we realize we don’t have to all be in one spot anymore—the best part about tech. Companies are having people work from home 100% now, and I hear and read that a lot of people are fleeing the cities. This is an exciting shift. I hope we can do the same somehow. Wim has been learning to code this whole time. I hope it’s not too late. Timing is always a factor with every industry. You can start too early, like I did with Video Hair Styles in 2007. It was a hair tutorial YouTube Channel, the first to really make those. We had 11.5 million viewers, but no one knew how to make money on it yet. Google was sucking all of the money from our advertising and we were broke. Learning to code will always be useful, but soon everyone will be taught that in school, like how typing was a specialty in the 50s and 60s, even up til the 80s. My aunts were able to purchase a lot of property in Chicago with their typing jobs in their time. Now everyone can do it. We have both been in the undertow of timing in our generation—learning to master something, right as it’s about to shift again. Wim has two degrees, and just about everyone I know in my age group has had to return to school. I hope some day my fruit will produce value.