Vignettes

I’m walking up Telegraph Avenue, when I realise I forgot to window-shop at Moe’s. So I begin to make my way back when a tall, blonde woman crosses my path; her mouth is making soundless shapes. The creases on her face and hollow eyes tell a story of someone who has aged faster than time typically would someone her age.

Instinctually, I take my headphones off but quickly realise I should have kept them on.

She starts to tell me something about what Barbara’s son did to her that I wouldn’t believe; I should have trusted my gut that she seemed like someone who’s not long for this world. Hasn’t been for a while by the looks of it. I still give her a couple seconds of my time. Just that I don’t want to come across too rude, y’know. Then she moves on to bug some students queuing in front of a noodle shop and I continue my march. This is not my first such encounter this week.

After Moe’s, I begin a march back up Telegraph towards Rasputin’s to checkout some records when someone in the noodle shop queue gives me the eye and starts giggling. I’m confused by that—it’s a little more than a smile to acknowledge someone on the street—but pay no heed to it.

But then another person looks at me and giggles. I look down at my clothes. Maybe it’s what I am wearing or I have some food on me but I don’t see anything obvious.

I then peer over my right shoulder in case they were looking past me at traffic? Still nothing. Then, as I turn my head forward, I sense someone to my left—it’s the same woman from earlier, this time walking closely beside me and matching my stride. Talking to herself but it’s in a manner and proximity that conveys the familiarity of someone she’s known all her life. I decide to cut across the street to the pavement on the otherside—that’s where Rasputin’s is anyway I tell myself.

I usually don’t see too many other people casually walking about in the city so I now pause to question if I seem similarly crazy. It’s partly why I wear my headphones so I don’t look like one of the crazies. But I guess only a crazy person chooses to navigate the world on foot.

I need to ditch these headphones except they’re my last line of defence from engagement with the Bay Area crazies while using them to also signal that I am not one of them.

“Man, my recollection of Berkeley from a decade ago is vastly different to how it feels to me now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I dunno, man. I’m back here after an age and walking everywhere. But it’s reminding me a lot of Altadena, y’know? The hilliness of it, strip mall-style parking lots, the ultra-wide multi-lane roads with streets cutting across them that are also a little too wide to be streets anywhere else in the world. Some of the homes on the streets look quite charming but somehow the sprawliness of where I am right now.. it’s just… off.. or off-putting.. like in LA.”

“You’re being ridiculous right now. Berkeley is nothing like LA.”

“Maybe… maybe I am… The streets I’m walking just unsettle me so much. I’ve walked past more parked cars on my walks in a neighborhood than I’ve seen humans on a daily basis. The only time I see people is when I get closer to the Berkeley campus; but it’s also when I notice the junkies so I kinda get my guard up. I start to think that maybe I’m a li’l crazy too when I bump into one. There’re not as many as I saw in SF but they are still the most common streetwalker around midday…”

“Ah, I see what you mean. You’re a stranger to our culture so the cars don’t make sense to you. People need them to get to work and then back home. It’s what people here live to do—people wake up to go to work then come back and sleep so they can wake up again to go to work. It’s the culture we’ve got here. And to make it all work efficiently needs things to look like they do that. It unsettles you when you don’t live here. I had that happen to me when I moved back here after living in Munich for a few years. We are definitely doing very poorly on architecture and aesthetics here because we don’t value it. But I’m also noticing just how large and empty the restaurants feel to me.”

“Hmmm.. yeah, maybe there’s an aesthetic that is working against my comfort levels. But all these cars.. I am in the Bay Area and I expect to see the future… like where are the flying cars? The din of traffic on Telegraph is killing me. Maybe all this road infrastructure can be salvaged into something prettier and cosier in terms of architecture.. more parks and playgrounds or something? Markets? I dunno..”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t understand how we got self-driving cars before self-flying ones. Autopiloted flying vehicles have been around for way longer than programmable cars. Like Waymo is actually a new thing! My guess is no one wants to figure out how to make this new thing work while also figuring out what we do with the roads we built. Can you imagine walking down Telegraph and now not even seeing people in their cars at the traffic lights?”

I’m on my walk home now, with my friend still in my ear. There’s a bit of a drizzle but I’ve found a quiet and cosy tree-lined street with beautiful cottage-style homes. The trees will shelter me from the rain that’s starting to pick up.

The pavement’s narrow; too narrow for more than one direction of pedestrian traffic so I step out of the way of four kids walking towards me, probably around five years old and wearing colourful translucent pink and yellow raincoats. There’s someone who looks like their babysitter in tow—a girl in her twenties, with a golden nose ring and wiry blonde hair that’s clearly gotten too damp from the rain. We exchange a glance and a smile because she’s clearly got a lot to deal with and appreciates me just stepping to the side.

As they walk past me, I say something to my friend about not being able to hear him. The girl turns around and says something to me, with an open and friendly look. I can’t hear her. I take off my jacket’s hood to point at my headphones to signal that I am on a call.

A chance to talk to a real person on a street who wasn’t crazy. Gone, just like that.

I really need to ditch these headphones.