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Blogs by Paul Cuenco
Predicament: Old Haunts 5/13/2012 3:57:43 PM
She was surly! She surely was. I asked the person about the discount. He in turn asked her. And she replied ne’er a smile on her face, “No!” While the people were not that friendly, the Starbucks I went into was remade into a functional space, full of tables and chairs, comfortable seats and electric plugs to plug in your laptop. Whenever I visited Vallejo, my sister and her entourage (Mom, Lauren, Taylor and Michael) takes me to this Starbucks. Here, we chitchat, sip and slurp Caramel Machiato and take a day when everything was carefree; after which we go on our merry way to watch a movie or shop.
When I come back to my former home, the traffic seem to get worse. Cars always crowd the freeway and it becomes the daily grind. In the early morning, the drive to Berkeley from Vallejo is a pleasant one until you hit the Carquinez Bridge. From the bridge, it is a daily crawl to Berkeley and for that matter, San Francisco. Drivers look bored as they look at each other. They honk at each other for their patience runs thin. And for those drivers still concentrating on their driving, they will pounce at every chance to take that vacant spot on the road bored drivers have not taken.
I don’t know why I go to Berkeley and Oakland every time I come to the Bay Area. There is an attraction I can’t get over. They are like sirens of Jason (of Jason, the Argonauts and the golden fleece) calling me. I hear them and I respond. But there is nothing I do over there except to go to a café and do an occasional window shopping. I watch and observe people and I write about them. No matter. The café and occasional window shopping can be done anywhere, but I chose to do it in Berkeley and Oakland. Even when I was looking for a home, then I did not care for the West Bay (San Francisco and the peninsula.) or San Jose. Berkeley and Oakland seem to be the proper place.
I have two places I love best when I am in those towns: one is the fountain right in from of Espresso Roma and the Café itself and two, Café Gaylord’s, right across Starbucks. Of course there are minor places I always stumble upon. Whenever I drive home to Vallejo, I have this ritual I go to. I’ll drive from Café Gaylord’s to the tall high rise of downtown Oakland to Jack London Square. And then I’ll drive back along Telegraph or Broadway to College Avenue, watching the crowd fill the café’s. They would bring with them books and laptops, briefs and some reading material or they would just be with friends keeping them company. I’ll end up at the University and I would drive down towards University Avenue up to Interstate 80 back to Vallejo.
What if I live here once more, as if it were the first time again? Is it too late? Surely, I will always meet surly people, here and suffer the consequences only because I asked a stupid question. The traffic and the daily grind which raises my blood pressure on a daily basis will be painted fresh with a new take, a new face. Watch and write about a different set of people now that I’ve reframed them and have accepted their manner like it was fin de siecle. They are the same people, only they have remade themselves like before; and although they never actually remade themselves, I remade them in a different light. While the sight and sound reverberates all the same, I see and hear a different one. I don’t know really if I could ever see the old haunts new again.
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