Longing for home,
the one I can’t go back to…
It is never the same as when we were kids.
An all-class reunion was this week.
Part of me would love to have gone, part of me never ever wants to go….
I think it has little to do with the people and more to do with the
Laguna Beach I loved and what it has become.
I loved the small beach town, the friendliness, the innocence —
even with the drug culture and 60’s sex happenings, it was a very innocent free place.
Now it is McMansions (gads they are everywhere) and mostly the über wealthy,
with a smattering of kids who were lucky enough to become wealthy enough to stay
or had their parents homes given to them so they had a home first.
It is chain stores on Main street, not family owned shops of distinction.
I hate that… it’s everywhere.
Give me the water, the sand, shell hunting and creature spotting,
body surfing and wet toes in sand. The palms and eucalyptus and avocado and coral
and magnolia and jacaranda, strawberry fields and corn fields and Laguna Canyon,
the wildness all around our corner of the world, rock and roll.
I think I’ll always be busy that first weekend in May….
Pentalic Aqua Journal, Lamy Al-Star, De Atramentis Document ink,
and Sennelier pan watercolors.
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D.Katie Powell Art 
–Hi, Im Leslie M. (female, 60)…visiting your site, saw your comments on John Pavlovitz’s blog. …I’m x-hindu / x-buddhist, now a Christian, artist (painter), cellist, grew up Seal Beach/Long Beach, california of the 60s, body-surfing, sand, sun, sailing, popsicles . [Having brothers, not sisters.] My husband & I live near Santa Barbara now.
I really like your paintings. I just took a painting course at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo), focused on street scenes, buildings, and placing figures. I ended up with one painting that I like. [A coastal town scene with shops & shoppers.] I have a small art gallery. Recently sold 3 paintings. YAY.
Just was reading about Dalai Lamas new Internet endeavor, ‘Atlas of Emotions’. I think his effort to document them is OK, but to me, as soon as it is published (online) , its already both outdated, and incomplete. And I think that his focus on emotions will back fire, in terms of people conquering – vanquishing their emotions, as Buddhism adheres to. (I studied Science of Creative Intelligence at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s college for 5 years in the 70s. And practiced Yoga & Patangali’s Sutras (siddhis) TM for 25+ years.) . I respect Tanzin Gyatso, and know that he has a large influence in todays culture. Yet….I have concerns about where he leads people.
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Hi Leslie,
Wow we have lots in common, including brothers no sisters! I bet our paths crossed as i am 60 too. Except I began life grounded in Catholicism and have considered myself Buddhist for forty years while I studied other religions.
I will tell you why I stay away from 90% of what is written about what the Dalia Lama is doing — American writers, at least, unless they are long-time Buddhists, never get what he is saying. They turn it into a gospel or a thing, and yet, when he is in front of you teaching, it is not like that. Imagine if the Pope were constantly misunderstood or mistranslated?! (Italian or Western languages are so much easier to translate.) It is crazy making for me, who usually knows where he is really going with this. DL is fascinated by science, and has partnered with a few schools to look at how TM or other forms of meditation effect the body/mind, but “mapping emotions” — I don’t think that would be how he would see it although the scientists he is working with might be trying to do that. I would think you’d be pleased with where he actually takes people, because for one thing he respects other religions and does not try to sway — unless it is some stupid reporter misquoting him. He respects religions as long as they are not cruel or tyrannical… It is like the difference between John Pavlovitz and some crazy Christian pastor who wants to marry off 13 year olds and thinks women are for making babies. People call themselves this or that, but do they walk the walk of the actual teacher? Most do not. I loved John’s “I’m going to hell” today — really really love the man.
Yay to sales! I have taken some amazing classes online and am open to sharing them if you like. Tell me and I will send you an email. Also, tomorrow one of the best of the online teachers (and a sweetheart) is going to be reblogged here.
Best —
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It makes me sad when I see those transformations from affordable to never-afford-it-again. I watched it starting in Seattle when I lived there in the late 70s. I’ve been back to visit where I lived, and I’m pretty sure I could never live in those places again.
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Yes… without diverse neighborhoods, you really lose something. Santa Monica did soem radical things in the 80’s, and it paid off big time for diversity in the rental neighborhoods and for the elderly. I don’t know how it’s worked out now….
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This is happening in so many cities, an evolution that is both unsettling and unwelcome. And as I say that, I know that my husband and I bought in one of the last “affordable” neighborhoods in San Francisco after both sets of our parents died and left us enough money for a down payment. I feel like I’m part of the gentrification of the entire city. What to do? My husband’s 15-yr-old company has its roots here. Not like we can pull it all up and go elsewhere. How can I feel guilty, thrilled, and terrified about our decision all at the same time?
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Things change, and cities change. Getting involved in preservation helps, but as I am not part of my hometown that is hard to do — I am involved here in Portland. However, if a city prices their working class OUT of the entire city, then they have no worker bees…. that is a huge problem in small towns now.
FEEL THRILLED. Tho I understand that terror…
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