New beginnings - Chapter 4

Head off to Santa Cruz tomorrow - yay I am ready to go. As was pointed out to me Cable Court Hotel is one of those "tipping points". I've watched people come, go and stay. Apart from some of the long standing tenants (upwards of 10 years) this is a staging point for people. Some people arrive with no plan whatsoever and arn't even sure if they can pay the next weeks rent. It's the oddest thing when I think about what it must be like to find yourself "homeless" and arriving here, with no idea what happens next and no visible means of support. Some people, like me I guess, are clearly moving on to something - even if we don't know what it is. Last night I spoke to a guy from Romania who has arrived here with his wife, having won his greencard in the lottery. They've only been here three weeks so haven't got their greencard yet and yes, are about as nervous about it as I was - it's not really real until the card actually arrives. We had a nice chat about NZ and Romania and the weirdness of the US. They are looking for accommodation but not finding it easy. He was worried about his english not being very good - I thought it was very good myself but it's definitely tougher if english is your second language. The whole immigration thing is big here - although San Fran calls itself a "sanctuary city" and refuses to allow it's officials to co-operate with the immigration service in raiding neighbourhoods, which they have started doing. It's an ugly situation as you have parents who are illegals but their children are US citizens - can't see any sign that there's anything like a descent policy approach emerging - in some cases the parents are gone and the kids end up with family or friends!
On the housing front I'm going to meet with some people on Wednesday who have a room for subletting for eight months starting 1 June. They sound like very cool people (well based on the email exchange). Older and, I think, at least two of them are European, not sure about the third. What makes it nice is the room I am looking at has a bathroom attached - I like that. We'll see and I guess I'll have to go through the dreaded "are you queer friendly" conversation - some of the ads for people actually say it out right. I'd be surprised if they're not but if it doesn't become obvious I guess I'll have to ask.........

ANZAC Day and writing books

No dawn service for me this year so I hunted around to see if there was anything happening in SF for ANZAC Day. Yup, about 2 minutes up the road at Grace Cathedral. It was lovely. There were around 150/200 people there. Mostly Aussies and Kiwis but some Americans too. They even had poppies to give away. Real highlight had to be the Australian Girls Choir singing the NZ National Athem in english and Maori! We also sang the American National Athem - which is a first for me and had a bugler do the Last Post. It was very strange to be surrounded by NZ/Aussie accents.

I'm not a big church goer (ie never go.......except as a tourist) but Grace Cathedral is a SF icon. People of all backgrounds are welcome and they conduct same-sex "unions" (best not use the M word). It also has an AIDs interfaith chapel that includes an alterpiece created by Keith Haring weeks before he died of AIDs. It's also where I walked the Labyrinth. Which, to be honest, I didn't know much about until I picked up the flyer inside the church. Very interesting history and the Cathedral has a project focused on introducing people to the philosophies behind the labyrinth.
More chirpy news - 3 publishers have come back and said they are interested in the book! I so forgot how small NZ is as I hadn't expected to get responses from my email so quickly. At least 2 are interested in seeing a manuscript.....now. A tad early but one is happy to see a sample chapter sooner rather than later. Wow - I'm taking it as a sign that as I start to do the right things the right things start to happen. Now I just need a place to live and some form of income (I have some ideas for that........not including wearing a suit).

I leave here for Santa Cruz on the 30th. I have indulged a bit and booked myself into a lovely little B&B for my first week. It's very very self indulgent and does mean I really do need to focus on getting a sublet for the summer. I haven't been spending much money in SF (doing all the free stuff) so this is my reward. I have a wonderful sense of new beginnings.

Cruz'n

End of the month and I am off to sunny Santa Cruz. Just back from a weekend with Michelle, seeing the Cowboy Junkies and doing "inside Santa Cruz". Sealed the deal really. It's a vibrant friendly little town. A mixture of old hippie, laid back muso and activist students. It has a real sense of creativity about it. Job opportunities vary. I am heading into summer so there a quite a few cheap sublets around for rent. Anyway I am wildly excited about the whole thing and the hotel I am in have agreed I can go at the end of the month (usually give 30 days notice) so it all falls into place. Michelle's also very kindly offered to come pick me up in a car so I don't have to go via Greyhound bus...........now that's a bonus. It's only 2.5hrs by bus and $13 but I have a few bags - this makes it all much easier. Am wildly excited by the whole thing. Michelle is around until mid June, and deeply emersed in finishing her Phd so although I will only get to see her occassionally it does mean I will have settled before she heads back to NZ.

Book writing is going well - I think. I have one chapter, the bones of another and am working through the introduction. It was obviously meant to be as the words just flow. Some days I think it's rubbish other days I like it. I am about to send out my first round of letters to publishers too. I am trying to get ahead with the writing so that if (ha!) they actually want to see a sample chapter, I have one.

I think we've all but finished selling houses (one to go unconditional) - should all be over within the next two months. It is, finally, starting to feel all very tidy and clean. Selling things off (including a lot of my personal belongings) has created this lovely empty space for me to do other things. In case any of you do wonder - I do feel very previlleged to be here right now and to have the space to pursue something entirely new. Could it be that I am actually about to give up Corporate life?..................well more importantly it appears I have!

Burning down the house

Not quite, but last night was very exciting as we had a fire alarm. Went off at around 9pm so not as bad as it could have been. Fortunately I am on the ground floor - about ten steps from the front door. Interesting to realise your life amounts to making sure you are dressed, grabbing your laptop, official documents, cellphone and wallet. People were pretty frecked out and I'm not convinced everyone left the buildings. Still fire engines arrived complete with two female firefighters! Cool! Nothing came of it.

I am reading this book. I haven't finished it yet but it is very interesting. It's the memoir of the Commanding General of Abu Ghraib. I came to the book with my own set of prejudices. As I read her story, as she tells it, I have tremendous admiration for her. While she demonstrated a failure of leadership – her soldiers staffed the prison but overall responsibility for the prison rested with the intelligence people – I don’t believe she either fostered, encouraged nor ever believed any of her soldiers would behave like this.
She was, in reality, responsible for setting up an entire prison system through Southern Iraq. A logistical nightmare and resulting in her being spread very thin with few resources. Early on she also had concerns about having military police personnel become prison wardens, recognising they didn’t have the skills. Still she was an A-typical soldier, committed to the mission and potentially not vocal enough about the real risks in the way the whole system was being set up.

She is mightily guilty of working hard on the wrong things and being out of touch. That, in my view, is not nearly the same as actively fostering nor encouraging the abuses that occurred. Equally too she takes ownership of this and, in quite a frontal way, challenges the systemic and gendered politics that had her singled out early on. While others, who had more decision making power than her were not. That may seem trite but she explains how she heard about the photographs and how her immediate boss behaved………..these are not things the media readily report but her dialogue is very compelling and at no point does she say she doesn’t have some accountability in the whole episode………….what she does introduce is an interesting and slightly reluctant view that gender played a huge part in how the system chose to manage her situation.
Things that never came out about Janis Karpinski are that she was a pioneer throughout her career including setting up and spending five years training women to work as part of the United Arab Emerites Armed Services. She was very much a believer in the system, although always recognised that being a women in the armed services made her different and experienced all the attendant abuses, both physical and emotional.
Nothing excuses what happened but I have always felt deeply disturbed that so few in the command structure were held accountable and I remain disturbed – Kaprinski’s paid the price but there is much more to this story yet to be told.
She does offer some candid insights into her entire 25 year military career as well – I am finding the style of the book (it has been written by a journalist, using her voice) very readable.

Rambling

In the interests of getting some real exercise and fresh air I decided to head off on my Golden Gate Park adventure, which the first time had lead me to the Presidio. GGP is closer to our idea of the gardens. All up it was 5 hours and about a 6mile or 10km round trip. I am always loathe to get on public transport and, to date, haven’t – I blame my mother and our trip to Vancouver! The gardens were lovely although not at all what I expected. They had all the usual things – ramshackle walk through the bush, coupled with a series of themed gardens (including NZ, which I didn’t wander into – I figured it wasn’t the best use of time as I kind’ve knew how that would look). Really the thing that struck me – the none gardener – was how NZ public gardens (and those we encountered in Canada) are really rather British.
Bay area residents are mightily proud of their gardens and they should be. The GGP is full of many lovely open spaces and rambling walks. I think perhaps though I have been unduly influenced, both by Wellingtons public gardens and Flis (who continues to be a talisman of what creating a dream garden could be). This has led me to a vision of gardens that consist of a series of “rooms”, boxed hedging and raised beds…………very Vita and Violet. It was just one of those cultural moments. Lovely in itself and wildly worth celebrating for the share difference of it all. Oh and I am such a cheap-ass too. It was a mere 5 bucks to get into the Japanese garden but I can go for free, three days a week, as long as I get there before 10am so kept my cash in my pocket.
I have been researching how to get my book published (like I have written it yet), started writing and devised, what I hope will be, a clever plan to get all the info I need out of the archived boxes I have stored in NZ. At one level I feel like I am spinning my wheels but then have a tremendous sense that patients, combined with commitment, will take me where I need to go……..in fact historically that always happens – when it suits the past can be a fine measure for the future!
Next weekend I go back to Santa Cruz to go to the Cowboy Junkies concert with Michelle. In my mind I have a vision of SC and it will be interesting to head back with a view to “this is about to become my home”. I’ve started looking at places to live. The University breaks for the summer soon so I am already seeing a whole lot of places looking to sublet – complete with furniture.
The singular best thing K & B have taught me about life in the US is if you are going to spend money on anything research, research, research. It is a lesson well learnt and now I have the benefit of Michelle’s local knowledge - I hope I end up somewhere nice and that has a dog.