I was twenty-two years old. I had a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Santa Cruz. But what comes next?
Real life. That's what comes when schooling's run its course, and for some that comes sooner than others, and others later, after more schooling, but by God, believe you me, it's coming. It comes for all of us. It came for me in 2010. I was twenty-two years old, and I wasn't ready for it.
So what did I do? Well, I ran for it. I ran like hell. Only looking back in the rearview mirror on the 101. My parent's house in LA didn't feel like home. It felt empty. Lacking somehow. The way a black and white photo would titled "Red Rose".
I liked taking photographs. When I was still in school, I would take Monster's SLR, her Canon Rebel, and play for the day.
She had three years left, she was going to be a sophomore that year, Erica. My little sis. My buddy Mike, my best oldest friend, was going to be a super senior that year, but only for fall quarter. He'd walked with us the previous spring at graduation, robes and all, they juts hadn't given him a diploma. Just a dozen or so units was all he needed. So naturally they were going to live together. While we had been in Europe, Monster and BB had found this cozy little two bedroom apartment just down the hill from the old palace on Western.
It felt good, moving them in. It felt right and nice, generically so. It was natural, and the sun and the crisp mountain air by the sea was as intoxicating as the spliffs and the IPAs, and Santa Cruz was the last home I really knew so that's what I latched onto, that's where I ran. I told myself I'd be writer, which sounded well enough in my head. There was a beautiful simplicity to the idea of it, and it looked swell, or at least well enough through those Casa Nova lenses I had at the time, all flooded with cool blue fading light and romanticism.
As far as places to run away to write go, Santa Cruz was pretty much perfect. I had friends there, new friends and close friends and young acquaintances and old role models an hour north in the big city. I had friends like family there. And I had healthy surf with a strong ocean and a flowering abundance of weed and forests and mountains and fresh air, and a university campus on a hill that looked stunningly across the Monterey bay on clear days, clear across. It's like a fairytale, Santa Cruz. It was absolutely lovely.
[stop]
