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Santa Barbara Liminal
Dec. 22nd, 2018 06:12 pmPlease understand, California should not exist. For millennia, for geological eons, it was below the sea–we find whales here, sometimes, but nothing was here, not really, until about 1 million years ago.
The land does not forget what it was, once.
Though the Chumash, six bands or more, traded and worked their way up and down the coast, trading as far as what is now New Mexico, or St. Louis.
Though the Spanish came, burned them and broke them and rearranged the brine that lay over so much of our city like a blanket, leaving only good soil in its wake.
There were strawberries here, once.
Consider how short we have been attached to the United States, by comparison to most others. No, we are not the Banana Republic or Seward’s Folly, but we are the ones who seem to be regretted most, for all our defensive pride.
The fact that our Gold Rush bankrolled the Civil War for the North,for all the grandstanding about who fought which and where back East, is conveniently forgotten.
We respect the land, pamper it, beg its favor, by the standards of other states, and so we are called soft hearted, foolish.
We know what will happen if we do not comply.
In the states that mock us, the land actively is trying to hurt you, hunt you, get you off it, and so those attracted to stay longer have that same ethos, that you and the land are under siege with one another, that the land, given a chance, could reclaim you.
We have the dubious kindness of warnings.
It is as though the earth itself has brought its hand down, hard, on the kitchen table, before saying how worried you make it sometimes, would it kill you to smile?
Drill all you like, they say, the land is yours for the using.
The disaster that started Earth Day, the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in 1969, was the third largest spill in history. Until 2010, four decades later, it was the second largest.
Everybody remembers this. Everyone.
In 2015 there was a far smaller oil spill from a corroded pipe, and the shifting of blame lasted until September 2018. Every time it came up, the mistrust towards oil companies was palpable, the memory of ruined beaches and wildlife and tourism revenue burned like a brand scar, memories of the choking horrible smell of brine and hot tar, birds and sea mammals and fish dead and dying, all of it together on the edge of the sea, that lasted for months on end, we remembered.
We are careful with our drilling, now.
“There were homes here, once.”
We know the fires like saints, and in a way, they are.
Coyote, Paint, Zaca, Gap, Tea, Jesusita, Thomas, Carr, and now Camp, every fire has a story, and you have your own memories.
Coyote was small, Papa says. Paint jumped the 101, Mom tells me.
The Zaca burned through Christmas, and as we sang “Silent Night” at our church, ash rained down and we joked it was snow.
The Tea Fire was in 2008, and everything, and I do mean everything, went wrong.
The Thomas raged for a month, and, without rain, I doubt I will ever see the miles from Ojai to Buellton as thick and blue-green as they once were. I doubt anybody named “Thomas” will run for office for a long while either, except Tommy Wiseau, maybe.
California is largely atheistic, or at least highly secular, but I assure you, we do have gods.
We have our Creatrix lying along the coastline to form the mountains, our homes buried against her belly, one outstretched arm splayed into the islands of our coast, another finishing the line of the sea. She accepts, she adores, she is every reason we stay, the glow of sunlight across all, the gently curving hills, the many-colored sky and sea.
Lesser goddess-saints populate our mythos–Pearl Chase, the Old Woman of San Nicholas, Madame Ganna Walska, the Rainbow Dolphin Woman. The legendary trickster figure of Alex Madonna, though his holding was in the north, is a warning in business across all reaches.
Violence is a dirty thing, and we are clean people, in Santa Barbara Beautiful.
We do not sow, is the cry of the fictional Greyjoys, and with a light, teasing grin, we know it is true of ourselves. Our money comes from other money, and medicine, and women with eyes like flint and smiles like a threat.
There was no metal here, no fish for packing, no natural harbor. A fellow named Peter Ramondino wrote an 1896 book with a chapter entitled “California for Invalids”, Santa Barbara was at the top of the list, and the wealthy invalids came, and their wealthy families came to visit, and the wealthy doctors came that they bought and paid for. Then, of course, followed the army of servants, and accountants, and lawyers, and so we continue.
And we were still piecemeal, still imperfect, until the 1925 quake and the 1929 crash, when we rose back in a shimmering mirage-world of Moorish Revival.
I assure you, we still have monsters.
The Scorekeeper is a more immediate figure. They live back east, beyond the mountains, in the entry place to the land of the dead. Men, women, children, others–the Scorekeeper knows them all. The Scorekeeper sends out “them” to aid themselves, to collect information and bring it back. Who are “they”? We do not say, and we do not tell, because to tell would be to cheat. We must not cheat, for the Scorekeeper knows every instance of cheating, every missed bill, every test, every grade, every doctor’s appointment, every record.
The Scorekeeper determines, quite simply, are you successful? Have you exercised your full potential? Did you have a strong heart, did you have grit?
If you do not, the Scorekeeper ensures that nobody will remember you.
Nobody will ever love you.
The land does not forget what it was, once.
Though the Chumash, six bands or more, traded and worked their way up and down the coast, trading as far as what is now New Mexico, or St. Louis.
Though the Spanish came, burned them and broke them and rearranged the brine that lay over so much of our city like a blanket, leaving only good soil in its wake.
There were strawberries here, once.
Consider how short we have been attached to the United States, by comparison to most others. No, we are not the Banana Republic or Seward’s Folly, but we are the ones who seem to be regretted most, for all our defensive pride.
The fact that our Gold Rush bankrolled the Civil War for the North,for all the grandstanding about who fought which and where back East, is conveniently forgotten.
We respect the land, pamper it, beg its favor, by the standards of other states, and so we are called soft hearted, foolish.
We know what will happen if we do not comply.
In the states that mock us, the land actively is trying to hurt you, hunt you, get you off it, and so those attracted to stay longer have that same ethos, that you and the land are under siege with one another, that the land, given a chance, could reclaim you.
We have the dubious kindness of warnings.
It is as though the earth itself has brought its hand down, hard, on the kitchen table, before saying how worried you make it sometimes, would it kill you to smile?
Drill all you like, they say, the land is yours for the using.
The disaster that started Earth Day, the Santa Barbara Oil Spill in 1969, was the third largest spill in history. Until 2010, four decades later, it was the second largest.
Everybody remembers this. Everyone.
In 2015 there was a far smaller oil spill from a corroded pipe, and the shifting of blame lasted until September 2018. Every time it came up, the mistrust towards oil companies was palpable, the memory of ruined beaches and wildlife and tourism revenue burned like a brand scar, memories of the choking horrible smell of brine and hot tar, birds and sea mammals and fish dead and dying, all of it together on the edge of the sea, that lasted for months on end, we remembered.
We are careful with our drilling, now.
“There were homes here, once.”
We know the fires like saints, and in a way, they are.
Coyote, Paint, Zaca, Gap, Tea, Jesusita, Thomas, Carr, and now Camp, every fire has a story, and you have your own memories.
Coyote was small, Papa says. Paint jumped the 101, Mom tells me.
The Zaca burned through Christmas, and as we sang “Silent Night” at our church, ash rained down and we joked it was snow.
The Tea Fire was in 2008, and everything, and I do mean everything, went wrong.
The Thomas raged for a month, and, without rain, I doubt I will ever see the miles from Ojai to Buellton as thick and blue-green as they once were. I doubt anybody named “Thomas” will run for office for a long while either, except Tommy Wiseau, maybe.
California is largely atheistic, or at least highly secular, but I assure you, we do have gods.
We have our Creatrix lying along the coastline to form the mountains, our homes buried against her belly, one outstretched arm splayed into the islands of our coast, another finishing the line of the sea. She accepts, she adores, she is every reason we stay, the glow of sunlight across all, the gently curving hills, the many-colored sky and sea.
Lesser goddess-saints populate our mythos–Pearl Chase, the Old Woman of San Nicholas, Madame Ganna Walska, the Rainbow Dolphin Woman. The legendary trickster figure of Alex Madonna, though his holding was in the north, is a warning in business across all reaches.
Violence is a dirty thing, and we are clean people, in Santa Barbara Beautiful.
We do not sow, is the cry of the fictional Greyjoys, and with a light, teasing grin, we know it is true of ourselves. Our money comes from other money, and medicine, and women with eyes like flint and smiles like a threat.
There was no metal here, no fish for packing, no natural harbor. A fellow named Peter Ramondino wrote an 1896 book with a chapter entitled “California for Invalids”, Santa Barbara was at the top of the list, and the wealthy invalids came, and their wealthy families came to visit, and the wealthy doctors came that they bought and paid for. Then, of course, followed the army of servants, and accountants, and lawyers, and so we continue.
And we were still piecemeal, still imperfect, until the 1925 quake and the 1929 crash, when we rose back in a shimmering mirage-world of Moorish Revival.
I assure you, we still have monsters.
The Scorekeeper is a more immediate figure. They live back east, beyond the mountains, in the entry place to the land of the dead. Men, women, children, others–the Scorekeeper knows them all. The Scorekeeper sends out “them” to aid themselves, to collect information and bring it back. Who are “they”? We do not say, and we do not tell, because to tell would be to cheat. We must not cheat, for the Scorekeeper knows every instance of cheating, every missed bill, every test, every grade, every doctor’s appointment, every record.
The Scorekeeper determines, quite simply, are you successful? Have you exercised your full potential? Did you have a strong heart, did you have grit?
If you do not, the Scorekeeper ensures that nobody will remember you.
Nobody will ever love you.
