How Weird is My City? Santa Cruz Redefines "Normal"
By David Hoban, Special to Santa Cruz Wire
SANTA CRUZ (November 2009) - In 1968 my wife and I lived in London. Having been natives of Philadelphia, a colonial city with neighborhoods named after those in London, we were soon at home. So, it was with surprise in 1972, when we moved to Santa Cruz, that we found ourselves, culturally like fish out of water.
On every day of the year except Halloween, I often found myself confused. I couldn’t tell who was in costume at any given time. There was the ever- changing Santa Cruz top ten: The Sun Man, Ginger, The Dancer, The Shopping Bag Lady, The Umbrella Lady, The Rainbow Lady, and occasional men in suits. Surely in Philadelphia they would have been institutionalized. Yet here they were a part of a fabric of tolerance. What the hell was going on here?
Language, as I knew it did not exist here. I was accustomed to story telling, repartee and insults on social occasions or with any of the local merchants. Here, my style was taken with perplexity or offense. There were no wise asses to be found, only people seeking wisdom.
I remember, with not a little amusement, the first time a ‘waitperson’ sat down on a chair near our table, crossed her legs, announced her name and that she would be ‘our server’ for the night. I recall whispering to my wife, “I’ll be your customer for the night.”
I recall my wife telling me about an incident at the supermarket – her first experience of understanding the language of the natives. She had been standing in a long line in a bored reverie when she caught the eye of a surfer bagger. He responded to her entire being with deep understanding, “Really.” The expression of a single word, formerly an adverb lending emphasis to adjectives, eg “really boring,” suddenly became an existential statement in and of itself. The breakthrough had been made.
Redefinition was not limited to the spoken word. I had played soccer in Philadelphia both in college and in the ethnic leagues. Competition was a given. To sit on the bench or be yanked from the game was a humiliation, and bench sitters forever strived to become starters.
So, when, in my son’s first game, I saw the best players sitting on the bench at the beginning of the game I began to yell, “They’re sitting on the bench, They’re sitting on the bench.” The coach, inoculated with peace, assured me. “They are resting.” I nearly went through the roof. The best players were resting and the game hadn’t even started. How could they play a competitive game without competing?
And what was excellence? Prior to living in Santa Cruz, I had been led to believe that a standing ovation was for those special performances worthy of extra appreciation. Subsequently, at every concert I attended, I found myself stubbornly sitting in the midst of riotous standing ovations for virtually any performance. I would often look to the back of the auditorium to see if they were applauding someone else. The performers seemed to love it and always said Santa Cruz audiences were the greatest. Was I fish out of water or just an east coast snob?
One day I took a long walk north on Route One when I passed a hitchhiker headed north. I walked for about an hour and on my return, I saw the same hitchhiker on the other side of the road. It occurred to me that in Santa Cruz, the object was not to get somewhere but to be on the road.
I have heard it said that a fish knows nothing about water. Well, I have learned something about the Santa Cruz depths after living here for more than thirty-five years - I have learned to swim with the school. I actually like non-competitive, competitive sports; I actually like Halloween and to give standing ovations to everyone. Really.
David Hoban is a psychiatrist and Trainer of Gestalt Therapists. He lives in Santa Cruz and Cinque Terre, Italy where he is the director of The Center for Therapist Development. He is currently working on a book, which at the current rate of progress, might be published posthumously.
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