slo

San Luis Obispo it’s a mouthful to say out loud, so the Californian’s refer to it as SLO, which is great. That’s much easier to say. I found myself outside the theater and the temperature had dropped to a slightly chilly mid-fifties range. I was in short sleeves and goose bumps formed on my arms, still I knew I wanted to go grab a beer before heading out of town and decided to check out a local spot that said it was a brewery and speak easy. I walked down the stairs and found one open stool at the bar. The bar tender was quite helpful and I found myself situated with a tasty mango IPA before long. As I took my first drink my neighbor to my right turned and said, “I did the same thing.” He mentioned that the mango IPA was his favorite from this place, but he had tried samples of a couple others before landing on it. This was my first impression of, (we’ll call him Will to allow him to remain completely anonymous in this space).

It was interesting in the intervening minutes before our conversation started the projections and insecurities my mind sent up for me to interact with. First of all, a lot of these places near the coast in California are just a different level of affluent from what I’m used to. There are Tesla’s everywhere and people just have a different mentality I think than what I’m accustomed to out in the Midwest. It’s definitely culturally different. So I’ll allow for these sort of protections that my mind had created around my position in the space and the fact that there are certain things to be aware of when navigating a relatively new environment. I’m glad that it didn’t prevent me from having a deep conversation with Will though. Whatever my fears and insecurities were about where I’m at in relation to we’ll just call it, “folks who have their shit together, writ large.”

The conversation that commenced was really something special. Will had grown up in California. Will had gone to NYU and then come back and done grad school in California. We talked about New York a bit just because I had been there earlier this year and was curious about a Californian perspective on such a unique place. It’s a place that’s always surging. It’s easy to get lost there. We talked about a lot of different things, it seemed like the conversation wanted depth though and kept going there. Will spoke words of life over my process with transitioning to the west coast. He is about 10 years older than myself, but has had similar longings for exploration and meaning beyond whatever corporate interests want to sell us as having “arrived” in this paradigm. The attempt at commodification of the sacredness of humanity that leads to so much suffering in the world. The ways in which we struggle underneath the tension of all of what the world tells us we can’t do and the cultural narratives imposed on what allows us to say we are successful in this life.

We talked about marriage and metaphors for what this experience is that we are living in. We talked about teaching and how Will finds that fulfilling and it took awhile to find. We talked about Jazz and the conversational nature of music as an art form and we talked about pastels and Will said how much soul is contained in the human face. Will presented me with a really interesting concept that I’ll share here, partially in order to work it out of my system in a new way that may allow me to see it in a deeper sense.

“Have you ever wished that all the world was the same as you? Thought the same and had the same beliefs and so on?” Will asked. He continued, “I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve thought very deeply about this. I think that the world would exist about how it does now. I have these impulses and desires to do good, but I’m also capable of rage and denial and all these other things. What if that’s actually what’s happening? What if all of this is you in a larger context working out this experience?”

The idea is big for sure. However, Will brought it around to the concept that we are capable of doing whatever it is that we want to do. Of finding the deepest thing and bringing it into the world. The idea that I am the arbiter of my own destiny was the punch line. Will is well read and thinks deeply, I love to see that and it’s so fascinating to engage with people like that in existential conversations. In a sense, I think I agree with Will and in another sense I don’t. I have found that I find meaning in something beyond myself and allowing that conversation with that beauty to develop has been incredibly impacting for me recently. (We are talking about Jesus again btw). However, I find this sense of leaning into desire and leaning into becoming ourselves so vital and so foreign to my original formation around life. So, ultimately, I think Will is on a major vein of human existence. One, because I’m just curious about other experiences with (whatever the fuck this is) outside my own, but also because I think that there was so much beauty in the way that Will found his way into whatever the life he is living and the fact that he was able to communicate that to me in a real way was incredible.

It was a long conversation. I’m not going to recount all of it here, but wanted to put in a few pieces. I will say that Joel having four beers on a stomach that hasn’t had food in the past 8ish hours hit harder than I was expecting. I was lucky to be safe, but I noticed that I get loud and enthusiastic when I’m having a good conversation when I’m drunk. I also say fuck a lot. It was a long night. I had to let myself cool off for several hours and ended up throwing up before I could leave town to head to the place I was sleeping that night. I found myself on a quiet street before leaving SLO looking at a phrase by Coco Chanel.

I’m struck by how wild life is when we live into it. I’m grateful for the friends I’m making and the conversations I’m having in my life right now. I’m grateful to be writing again. I’m grateful for the love that’s in my life. I’m grateful to be alive today writing this. I also don’t like being that drunk and I am glad that I’m okay, because I am not under the delusion that that was a risk free situation to find myself in a city I don’t know with limited functioning capabilities. That’s kind of what I mean about life in a sense though. It’s fragile and I think it’s important to take care. I think there’s a balance between leaning into what is presented and also developing boundaries for myself in different spaces that allow for me to remain safe and flourish long term.