We are made of Water

The ocean curved and crashed into the shore. From my perch on the cliff the surfers looked like tiny colorful bits of kelp tumbling in the froth or long winged seagulls riding the breeze into the shallows. I took another bite of my carne asada and guac burrito, breathed in the salty air between savory chews, wiped the hot sauce from my face, and sighed. 

It was good to be home.

San Diego! 

I took another bite of heaven and recounted my years spent shuffling through this sand, drinking at bonfires below these cliffs, baking my skin under these cloudless skies. 

Yet a feeling of agitation slowly rumbled to the surface.

I heard it before I saw it. A sound that made me uneasy before I could even identify the source. The sound of water hitting pavement. I looked down over the bluff.  At the base of the swirling stairs leading to the beach were two outside showers, bits of wood and metal, one of which was running full power- with no one there. A deep gouge had formed at the base of the shower. 

A delta of wasted water soaking into the sand, seeping back to the sea. 

Water water everywhere… but nearly 90% comes from somewhere else so really we each may only have a drop to drink and certainly not enough to let run into the sand. 

I wrapped up my burrito, ready to descend to shut off the faucet when a surfer approached the shower and washed off his board. 

Please please please turn it off, I telepathically willed him, then watched in fascination mingled with disgust as he walked away from the spewing showerhead. 

Really, dude? I mean, brah? Maybe he’s from the East Coast, I reasoned, where they don’t know that water is scarce in these parts. But then I thought of my family at home- running the shower for five minutes to “warm it up” or letting the kitchen sink shoot water directly into the drain while washing dishes off to the side. It kills me! 

I cannot leave a tap running and I drive my Mom crazy when I instinctively swoop in and switch off the water. 

“Jennifer! Stop being such a fanatic!” 

To which I calmly (or sarcastically, depending on the day) reply, “We live in a desert, remember?” 

Maybe I am a fanatic, I think as I stare off at the boats on the horizon, the sound of crashing waves intermingling with the hiss of water of that sticky handled shower.

Maybe because I’ve lived on a boat for so many years where water is surrounding the damn thing but you either have to make your own and hope that the expensive and finicky reverse osmosis watermaker works, or you must ration the water in your 400 (or 40) gallon tank so that it will last for weeks. And that’s not just drinking water. It’s for washing dishes and showering (or sponge bathing) too.

Maybe it is because I have actually been in situations where the ability to procure water has been life or death. On my 32 ft sailboat my (former)partner and I once went for three weeks without the ability to fill our 40 gallon tank. We had a few five gallon jugs to supplement the stock and we funneled rain into extra containers when we could, but we made that total of 60 gallons last. 

For three weeks! 

60 gallons is less than ¾ of what the typical San Diegan uses in a day. 
One. 
Day. 
88 gallons! 
On my boat, we had no choice but to conserve. We held our lives in our own hands. Or rather, in our waterbottles and sink basins. 

So I think of water differently, for sure. Yet I think that San Diegans are in the same dire situation (or you could say the same boat) but the majority just don’t know it. Or won't admit it. 

Where are the mandatory water restrictions? Where are the public service announcements? Why aren’t there planes skywriting, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow!” Oh wait, carbon emissions- never mind the plane. Why aren’t we shouting from the corners of the Gaslamp, “If it’s brown, flush it down!”  Why aren’t all the lawns dead or better yet ripped out? Why doesn’t anyone seem to give a fuck? 

What is it about many San Diegans, transplants or natives, that breeds this apathy? Sure the weather is perfect year round (read: no rain), but don't you think that comes with trade-offs? Is it the laid back, live for today attitude that many bring with them to the bars and beaches that dissuades them (us) from thinking too far into the future that may include an even more severe drought and possibly even systemic collapse? Or is it the same fear of truth that forces them into denial, just like it does with the seemingly worldwide denial of fishery collapse? The forever shifting baseline changing our perception of "normal." If you can't see it or feel the crisis in this moment, does it not exist? Might as well eat all the fish you can get your hands on now before they are all gone. Keep using the water as you always have to wash down that driveway at noon and cross your fingers it will still come out of the tap tomorrow...

I stand up to take matters into my own hands. I start down the sandy stairs but then another surfer comes along, rinses off his board, dunks his head, and wiggles the handle. 

It’s off! 

Thank god, another caring soul. Or another someone with a touch of OCD. But it’s off, that’s all I care about. Until the guy after him uses it and walks away, leaving the constant stream to dig deeper rivulets into the surrounding sand. 

Jesus Christ buddy! See this crumbling red earth? Do you remember the last time it rained? Sure, I’ve been gone for four months, but I know we haven’t “caught up” on rain. Yup, according to the government, we’ve received about three inches of rain this year. San Diego’s yearly average is around 10 inches which we haven't reached since 2011. And even with an “average” rainfall, we still import almost all of our water!

My frustration mounts once more as water drains into earth until yet another surfer rinses and wiggles (the faucet, that is) and the stream is halted.

At least some people seem to care.
And my mom just gave me a dozen or so adorable succulent plants.

Maybe there is hope. 

What can we do about it? The best course of action is probably to move back where you came from.  There is most likely a hell of a lot more water there. But I know I’ve got to share my hometown with you people “from away” and I happen to love a lot of you, so, actually, I’m glad you’re here to help get the word out. Until, of course, I get fed up and move out of town to greener, lusher, wetter pastures myself- but maybe you'll join me?

In the meantime here is a list of obvious and not so obvious things we can do to save water if we’re going to stay in this desert. And notice I say WE. It has to be a community effort.  Voluntary, Mandatory, or For the Love of San Diego and Mother Earth: Let’s go!

The Basics: 

Limit your showering time.

Turn off tap when brushing your pearly whites (or coffee stained yellows).

If you want to take a bath, make it a shallow one. And scoop out the (minimally soapy) water to feed plants when you’re done. 

Don’t wash your car on the sidewalk (pick a carwash place that recycles water) if you’re that kind of car hygiene person. 

Water your veggie or native plant garden (NOT LAWN! RIP IT OUT!) in the morning (preferable) or evening.

Turn off the kitchen sink when you’re soaping up dishes. 

If you absolutely must use your dishwasher, make sure its full. 

Same goes for laundry.

Get low-flow everything: toilets, showerheads, etc

Fix leaky shit. Duh.

Even Better: 

Get a small tub for your kitchen sink. Soak and rinse dishes in the tub, using minimal soap. Or two tubs if you have the room. Remember how they used to talk about Dishpan Hands? Lets bring em back in style, hey!

Throw out the dishwater in nearby bushes or trees if you can.

Use greywater (the used water from your laundry, kitchen and shower) in your garden. Hook up a system yourself or use the amazing talent of someone like Brook Sarson at H2OME.

Install water-harvesting tanks if you have a house. We may only be getting a few inches right now, but may as well make the most of it.

When waiting for the shower water to heat up, place a bucket to catch the cold water. Use that to water plants or flush the toilet.

Speaking of toilets- “If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” For someone who drinks a lot of water like me, I can save a dozen or more gallons a day by following this rule. It’s just pee, get over it, even if it’s somebody else’s in your household. Geesh.

Weird, and perhaps not necessarily local, but stay with me:

Eat grass fed beef if you’re a meat eater (perhaps with the exception of the ocassional  kickass La Posta carne asada burrito?). Growing grains, which aren’t good for cows anyway, uses up a shit ton of water. One pound of beef requires thousands of gallons of water (mostly going to mono-crop production). Grass fed tastes better, is better for you, and you can get it from local farms. Have you ever been up The 5 freeway and seen all those unhappy, smelly, CAFO cows? They eat grain instead of grass and seem very sad. Stop the Sadness. 

Use a refillable water bottle. It takes water to make plastic bottles. But you already know plastic is wasteful anyway, right?

Turn off those lights, turn off the air conditioning. Electricity production requires water to cool those huge power plants. Capeesh? 

Ok, enough from me. Google “water conservation” if you want more ideas. Or go to this site for more desert friendly water conservation tips.

And if you have more tips, ideas, rants, use the Comment section to your hearts delight.

Fragile: Handle Like Eggs

Breakdown
Breakthrough
Breaking ground for new thoughts feelings adventures.

Tears well up and stream down my face on the freeway as I pass nonexistent trees and empty lots full of car corpses, the memories of paved-over neighborhoods, the scummy haze creeping over the horizon. I scream into the windshield and beat the steering wheel. I sob and open the windows and let my hair flail and tangle in my snot and spit. I laugh because I know in Southern California this behavior is (kinda) normal. We emote in our public privacy. We are enclosed in glass and metal and are alone if we ignore our rear view mirrors and just stare at the taillights ahead. We sing at the top of our lungs and yell obscenities at the off-ramps and weep into our consoles.

I have been driven back here. When the drumbeats cease and the horns are only echoes in my head I nod at my friends, run a sweaty hand over warm-from-dancing backs, slip out the door. I walk towards the water searching out the curve of hulls and the skyward stretching of masts. I listen for the seagulls and the hollow snap of fish breaking the surface to snack. The lights of downtown cascade nighttime shadows over the bay. The bay! I sailed out of here with bioluminescent dolphins at the bow ten years ago with dreams of never coming back.
We were done San Diego, you and I.
At times like these I measure my life in nautical miles and 30,000 clicks and many lifetimes later here I am again staring up at skyscrapers and hills and wondering why I'm back.
Why I keep coming back.
(But I already know the answer.)
The breaking of hearts.
The breaking of bread.
The breaking waves calling me to surf and sit and contemplate.
The breaking of expectations of what or where I will be in another ten years.
The break with the past.
Breakdown
Breakthrough

Stars Words Sea

I saw a shooting star tonight. The light caught the edge of my dimming vision, the edge of my shooting thoughts. The sun had set an hour before, the clouds darkening from red to purple to black as I traced a path of incomplete half steps along the sandy shore. It fell so quickly, I wondered if it happened, if I happened to remember it wrong. But that is not possible. Memories are true no matter how much truth they contain. Just as journalism is the same as fiction, a day's happening and a dream are both real.

They say that Mercury is in Retrograde. I imagine a planet spinning backwards, pausing briefly to soak up the rays of the far off sun when in the neighborhood. I wonder if the stars falling through the universe towards me are affected by bouts of confusion, misunderstandings. If they are told not to start new projects (like burning up in the atmosphere of a far off planet) or not to even consider having "the talk" with their significant heavenly body other. But I guess the stars must be free of such constraints. They are to shine and hurl themselves without restrictions.

I've started the words already. They are flowing through the ether, through galaxies of procrastination, through the baffles of my editing brain. Onto a page or screen they go. Spoken to friends, stumbling on broken sentences, words tumbling past my lips without my knowing how they got there.

Mercury, retro all you want. It is time for stars and words and the sea (Always the sea...) where miscommunication doesn't matter because we are made up of carbon and don't make much sense anyway.

FALLING

The tangled roots and stems lay in a pile next to thriving mint and basil. The globes gone, the hornworms picked off (and crushed between dirty fingers), the hope of continuing candy-like sweet flesh dissipating in the thickening air. The Equinox looms, the pulled tomato plants blanch and crisp in the September sun, a few droplets fall from the muggy sky. We cheer, scratch our sweaty foreheads, twist strands of salty, sun-bleached hair.
I will soon pull out my smartwool socks.
I will start taking hot baths.
I will soon stop craving ice cream every day after working on the farm.

We're trying for fall. Trying to fall into deeper darker nights and fuzzy hoodies and crisp apples in hand and creamy mexican mochas listening to Ella at coffeehouses and a beach clean of (plastic) (alcohol free) bottles and (sunburnt) (LOUD) tourists.
Pumpkins on vines and cloud islands in the brighter blue sky.
A few leaves crunchy in the gutter in front of Craftsman houses, craft beer in hand, holding (unsweaty) other  hands.
I will breath deep, look up, pull my knitted scarf tighter as I dig in cool damp soil. I will revive like the ailing squash leaves the morning after a hot afternoon.

(Falling in San Diego isn't the same. My red orange flaming tree isn't down the road, wood fires don't fill the air with delicious smoke, gardens aren't sung lullabies. But we still fall.)

Some of the tomato plants will survive the (barely) winter, renew themselves, realize its really not too cold to fruit. By then I will be thinking again about summer, about gossamer dresses with farm boots and warm ocean water and stone fruits in hand and sweaterless picnics in the park but still savoring the flavors of spiced cider and smell of pine.

Goodbye tomatoes. Goodbye squash. Hello my Autumn Redux.

The world turns and all I can do is jump in

The seaweed wraps around my leg. Dirt from the farm washes through my toes and into the sand, into the surf. Salt covers my arms, my face. My hair loose and tangled and blond-tipped tumbles in a breeze that drifted past fishing boats beyond the horizon. I wade into the sea shuffling my feet to scare off stingrays and sink deeper into the bed that always comforts me. The sun is setting and I am alone and I am surrounded by people and I am listening to the whooshes and crackles over wet sand. The kelp lies quietly covered with flies and styrofoam and tiny plastic dolls and all other sorts of our land-bred pests. I turn to face the sun sinking towards the water wondering if there will be a green flash and wondering, doubting, hoping: have I actually ever seen a green flash? Do I make it up every time? What else is there to hope for in a sunset?
The seaweed wraps around my torso and the waves push and pull and cover me and I forget who I am and that I'm in the water and that we are usually separate.
The sky is pink and white, the bay purple as I walk home over sand and concrete (sand).
I already miss the water, the me I left in moon-ruled waves and am jealous of the sun seemingly snuggled in the churning frothy sea.

Home in San Diego

The van pulls into the carport and my sisters and I are woken up by the lack of noisy engine, the lack of Johnny Cash on the cassette player, the lack of cigarette smoke filtering into the backseats. We grab our blankets and pillows and stumble into the house in the middle of the night. Or we are fully awake when we get home in the late afternoon and we bound out of the yellow Vanagon and call dibs on the toilet. I'm seven years old and it smells like summer inside the closed up house. We've only been gone for a week, a week of fishing and hiking and oh boy burnt pancakes and greasy Bishop bacon and driving through the mountains of the High Sierras and the desert that is Southern California. We're home and the blinds are closed and the cats and dogs haven't been picked up from the animal hotel (fleas!) yet and the green shag carpet harbors the smell of small chlorinated feet and the damp towels laid out to watch movies- the smell of summer break.
Whenever I come home I expect that smell. Maybe remodeling and insulating and tile instead of shag changed the smell, but the feeling of walking in the door is nearly identical.
The feeling of coming home to the house you grew up in.
I get a glass of water, walk through the house to see what has changed, go into my old bedroom and fall into a deep sleep under the glow in the dark covered (still!) ceiling beams.
The yellow Vanagon is long gone but my dad's legacy of sturdy cars remains. On my first day out of the house I jump into the Chevy Blazer and bump onto the main road. This is what I do:

1) I get a burrito. Usually bean and cheese, maybe a little sour cream and guac thrown in. Any displaced southern Californian can tell you that there is nothing, nothing like a lard infused tortilla full of beans or carne asada, dripping with smoky hot sauce and fresh guacamole, wrapped in paper as an attempt to contain the tasty mess. And at one o' clock in the morning on a foggy San Diego night, even New York pizza can't compare.

2) I drive through my favorite neighborhoods: Kensington, North Park, South Park, Hillcrest and into downtown. Most of the neighborhoods have changed dramatically since my high school days. Hillcrest used to be filled with coffeeshops and used bookstores and sketchy kids asking for money on the street. I used to drink lots of coffee and buy far too many Beat poetry books and makeout with those kids between clove cigarettes. Now there are a few Starbucks and less bookstores and I don't smoke cloves anymore now that I'm in my 30s. I guess Hillcrest and I have grown out of our "pretending to be tough" phases. I keep driving. I mentally list the restaurants and bars I Need to visit. I probably won't but I like the myriad of possibilities.

3) I stop to get coffee, to write, to observe life at one of my favorite coffee shops. It's hard to believe, but San Diego has cooler cafes than New York City. The kind of places where you can sit all day with a mug (hot warm cold coffee) and a crumb of scone on your plate and write and read and just be. You get to know the people at the counter, the regulars. Soon you are a regular and start dating the cute guy with long dark hair who smiles when he serves you tea but he's not the cool intellectual you thought he must be working at a coffee shop full of people studying and you break it off before you go away to college and at college you miss all the neat coffee shops of your hometown and you boycott Starbucks (still do) but meet real intellectuals in sweaters and thick framed glasses. (this is what home does- nostalgia full force)

My favorites:

Claire de Lune in North Park http://www.clairedelune.com/

976 in Pacific Beach http://www.cafe976.com/

Living Room in the College Area (my second home during my teenage years) http://www.livingroomcafe.com/sdsu.php

Zanzibar in Pacific Beach http://www.zanzibarcafe.com/Pacific-Beach.html

There are so many more (and so many that closed down) but these are the must visits.

4)The beach. I head to Pacific Beach. The drive through the bay park area is always surprisingly exhilarating. The water (desert? water shortage?) is everywhere and there are always sailboats and kite surfers and fishing boats making fluffy white wakes in the inlets and under bridges and through sets of jetties. I park at the end of Grand Street where I used to skateboard or go up to Law Street where I used to surf and I walk along the concrete boardwalk and watch the waves.
And I finally breathe out for the first time since getting home.

5) I eat another burrito. I realize that eating burritos for 10 or 20 days in a row before I go back to wherever I may be living at the time is probably not a good idea for my thighs or heart. But I do it anyway because frozen burritos suck and Chipotle is not quite the same.

6) I take walks with my mom and sisters to the end of our street. We talk and we vent and we discuss and we let down guards and we breathe. And we dodge cars with ancient white haired people and surly teens clipping the gutters of the sidewalk-less neighborhood. We look for coyotes and mountain lions and comment on houses (one still looks like a Sizzler, one is painfully misguided Tuscan Villa) and we talk some more.

7) I hang out with friends who still live in San Diego (this isn't necessarily a hometown people are eager to leave) and they show me the new cool spots or we revisit old haunts. We drink beer and wine and eat sushi and sliders and catch up on life. That's what you do when you come home.

8) I go to a film or a play, usually by myself. When I was growing up I would take advantage of the numerous art house movie theaters (all but one or two gone now) and prestigious theaters and dream about acting. The velvet seats of the Old Globe theater, the edgy experimental pieces that La Jolla Playhouse would throw at its patrons (the fudgy brownies I would eat at intermission), the smaller theaters with a few seats but lots of heart. I was a part of that community and I happily did my duty several times a month supporting the local arts when I wasn't in a show myself.
These days when I come home its harder to time my visits with the live shows I really want to see, but there are enough films in non-stadium seating movie theaters to keep me satiated. Even if I am the only one in a theater at the 3:50 showing of a New York City based indie.

9) I go to the Red Fox Room with my family. My grandfather went there, my mom and dad went there when they were young and childless, we Goff girls go when we're all in town (cheers to Dad) and eat carrot sticks and olives dipped in ranch dressing and cold iceberg salad (blue cheese please) and petite filet of steak (medium rare) or halibut almondine (rice pilaf or baked potatoes or fries) and split the carrot cake. We sip small goblets of wine and always comment on how cool it is that the interior wood paneling used to be a bar in England and that the piano singer is really live, not a recording, singing out in the dim red light.

10) I go downtown and walk around and pine for the days of homeless and junkies and falling apart buildings and funky coffeshops and retro hotel lobbies. Yes, I know that San Diego is better off economically with a vibrant downtown, but the rough edged downtown I grew wandering around had more charm. At least to my 17 year old fishnet stocking wearing, Shakespeare tragedy reading, black and white photographing, oh so soulful self.

11) I sit in the backyard and look out at Mission Valley, listen to the cars speeding between the beach and snow covered mountains on the freeway, breathe in the blue sky and green lawn (desert! water shortage!) and slight smell of chlorinated water drifting from the pool I used to splash around in all summer long. I wonder if I could live in San Diego again. I wonder where I am flying off to next. I wonder when I will be back...

...To do my list all over again.

SDMTS

Riding the bus in San Diego is unacceptable. To the hundreds of thousands (millions?) behind the steering wheels, the inside of a bus or trolley is utterly foreign territory.
“I’m getting a bus pass, Mom,” I say casually.
“Jeff and I worked very hard so that you wouldn’t have to get a bus pass. I will give you money for gas.”
“Mom,” I whine, reverting into my 12 year old self who did a science fair project about how much trash versus recycling an average family consumes. Only the project wasn’t very scientific. It was just gross and aggravating as I pulled out soda cans and sticky two liter bottles and crusty dog food cans and soggy newspapers and chided my family for killing the earth. The subject of saving the environment meant a lot to me and I couldn’t understand why my family couldn’t appreciate the depressing facts and dogmatic energy-saving ideas I spouted even back then.
Funny, the more I harped, the less compliant to my environmental regiment they got.
“Mom,” I say again, collecting my thoughts and trying to deal with her as a 31 year old should, “This is not a class thing. I am doing it because I can. Because I am driving a car that gets 10 miles a gallon on a good day. Because I don’t want to be a hypocrite because recycling is not enough.”
“Isn’t your time worth anything to you?” she says, perplexed.”The bus takes hours to get anywhere; its just not convenient.”
“Neither is $75 to fill up the tank. Besides, I can catch up on my reading. And people watching.”
And so far its been fine. Sure I missed my bus home the other night at the bar, but only because I knew I had a ride home. And sure, there was a guy who sat a little too close this morning as he watched Inside Edition about Tiger Woods and his failed marriage, glancing every once in a while at me to see if I too was obsessed with the scandal. (no) (OK, only inadvertently- wifey with a golf club to the back window to rescue him? yeah right!)

So this month I am attempting to use public transport (bus trolley train) and my own two legs (bike walk) as much as I can. The car will be used when I absolutely have to (obscure location, emergency, unexpected time crunch, cargo hauling) or when I can carpool (friends family). Any time in the car will be tallied and offset by carbonfund. Lets see how I do in this completely car obsessed city.