July 11, 2016

It is strange to be staying in Berkeley after not having been here for the last eight years. I recognize street names and there are familiar places but it is more crowded and noisy than I remember and the extremes that were always here are more palpable.

This morning I walked Dreamer along the Berkeley Aquatic Park, which is a narrow strip of greenway next to a narrow body of water, which might be part of the Bay, but it is hard to tell. Right next to the water is the freeway that takes you to the Bay Bridge into San Francisco with its gorgeous views of the Bay. There is something disconcerting about having a greenway next to a freeway, yet in a crowded city where every space is utilized, it is amazing there is a greenway at all.

I walked the same greenway with Dreamer and Ernesto the other day and my observation is that it is never silent here. There are always cars passing, the Amtrak and cargo trains run frequently, sirens blare, children scream, adults talk, dogs bark, ducks quack, and bicycles swoosh by—a constant cacophony of sound. For me, someone who thrives on silence, there is something agitating about it, but I can also recognize the beauty of it—hearing many languages spoken, joyful children, people using bikes instead of cars, the incredible diversity of people eking out a living in the same confined neighborhood.

I walked past a day camp on my walk and peeked in to see what they were doing. A staff member came out to talk with me about the paint explosion project they were working on and explained a little bit about their maker-camp that used power tools and other sophisticated processes to make creative projects. I also passed a Spanish-speaking day camp using a public park where the children were climbing on playground equipment and playing ball.

The greenway parking area is littered with RVs that I’m guessing people live in, right next to expensive cars like BMWs and Mercedes. A blind boy with his aide walks down the street as the aide teaches him how to use a cane. There is a waterfront nonprofit called Waterside Works that trains youth in job skills and includes a bicycle repair and rental shop, a café, and a wooden boat workshop for repair and sales. Right next door is an organization that builds bikes for those who cannot walk by creating hand-operated recumbent bikes. A group of people using these adapted bikes gathers on Saturdays and rides the trails along the waterfront.

On the corner are three homeless men pushing shopping carts with their belongings and two step away are two women out on their work break taking a walk and chatting (they had lanyards with IDs around their neck—a clear clue to employment).

I was on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) yesterday where I sat next to a Muslim woman dressed modestly and a scarf on her head, and right next to her was a young woman wearing as little clothing as possible in order to show us her artistically tattooed body with its many colors and designs.

If you don’t like to wait, this is probably not the place for you, because, despite the frenetic pace of life, there is constant waiting. I wait at the BART station for the train to arrive and then wait again for another train when I need to transfer at another station. I wait to look at the butter at the grocery store because there are so many people crowded around the dairy case. I wait for the cashier at the neighborhood store to stop talking about soccer so I can pay for my IZZY. I wait in traffic any time I drive anywhere.

It is ironic that such a busy place is filled with so much waiting, yet despite my normal impatience with waiting, I find myself welcoming the wait. I am relieved to sit down at the BART station while waiting for my next train because I’m exhausted and it gives me a little reprieve. I like waiting at the grocery store so I can watch all the people around me—I’m a real people watcher and sometimes worry that I’ll get in trouble for staring one of these days. Perhaps all this waiting is the only way people with such a frenetic lifestyle have to relax for a few minutes each day.

There is no space anywhere—every square inch of space is utilized for a building, a sidewalk, a school, church, something. The houses are inches apart and yards are the size of my front porch and this makes sense in an urban area and infill in incredibly environmentally sound. I wonder if waiting is a way to create space, at least mental space, where it is hard to experience a vastness of physical space.