San Francisco is having a bad winter. This is my third winter in the City; the previous two were relatively mild and dry, this one is shaping up to be a doozy. New year’s eve sent a river of rain water hurtling down the hill in front of my house, heading towards lower-lying areas of the City. I day dreamed about sending a little yellow rubber ducky downstream with a message saying ‘sorry!’ pinned to his yellow painted wing. Looking at the mess in SOMA and Mission I thanked my lucky stars that I chose the sweet little apartment in the bad part of town, that sits right on top of a hill. We sit here high and dry, with the wind and rain rattling the 120-something year old window frames and washing the peeling paint off the early 20th century façade.
Yesterday was nowhere near as dramatic as the forecast made it out to be. I am overly invested in the weather. San Francisco is partly one of my favorite places on the planet because of its temperate climate. We have minor variations on cool and foggy. It is bliss. Apart from this year we had a hot late summer, and are now in the throes of a dramatic parade of storms. How anyone can deny that the climate is fucked beyond redemption I do not know. One look at the extreme weather events and cycles of flood and drought should persuade the bullish capitalist types that caring about the planet is not optional.
The menagerie of pigs and dogs, eating each other and the planet up, processing the fruits of their dominion through their cruel systems to a state of shit and piss which they launch over the little that survives to grow until ripe for the pillage, passes me by flashing toothy grins as they march forever onwards in the goal to be one of the ‘haves’ at the cost of the ‘have nots’. This disparity in justice, resources and wealth cannot continue unchallenged. The sheep, both willing and struggling, will rise up in the end and say to the small numbers of profiteers that enough is enough. I like to think I am an odd scruffball – neither sheep nor dog, nor all-consuming piggy at the trough. I like to think I am just one of the many odd creatures that are not this nor that, but walk their own way towards a general direction of peace and fairness.
There is nothing else to do except listen to some Motown and feel that soul-to-soul outpouring of emotion. There is no point trying to hold back the rain, the deluge is going to come whether or not we want it, need it or fear it. I am pulling on my rainboots and beanie and going to let the rain hide the tears that fall down my cheeks. Humanity is in a cultural crisis, brought about by the rule of the internet and the concomitant rule of the Fool. The Earth is not flat. Pollution has consequences. Climate change is real, and cannot be reduced to ‘hotter’, but instead needs to encompass ‘wilder’ in all its varied forms of extremes. It is time to look at the big picture and stop being such animals who are ruled by ‘but I want it to be this way’ and mature into doing things we do not want, that inconvenience us, but are for the greater long term good. Lead us not into the temptations, unless they are of the Motown kind. Deliver us from the dichotomy of good and evil….and save us from our worst selves. I hear thunder on the horizon. It is far off but booming. It won’t be long until it is on top of us, and there will be nothing left to do about any of it. How I wish it would rain….less, but more frequently. It doesn’t sound so good, I know, but it is the best I’ve got.