KEEP IT NATURAL pt. 3

by Yukito Yoneyama / 米山ゆきと


San Francisco was an amazing city.
It could have been that it was my first foreign city I have ever visited.
Or maybe it was driven by the hopeful mind state of my sonic youth.
The sky felt higher and larger.
The air tasted somewhat sweeter.


I remember the visit downtown, which was led by one of the local volunteer students who were helping out with the program. I think her name was Heidi. Most of us agreed on her having a notoriously sized behind, ahh, she had a huge butt alright. (I'm not sure If "bigger the better" applies on this one, depends) And we were thin...perceptions. After being here for over a decade, I probably wouldn't notice it, if I went back in time to see her. I'm just saying, it is all relative.
She was probably thinking we look like toothpicks.
Heidi was really nice and patient. Imagine yourself leading 26 clueless Japanese students who don't really speak English, through downtown San Francisco. She must have been a saint.



I grew up in Yokohama, Japan, an industrial/historical city by the sea.
Ever since I was a kid, I could sense the ocean from miles away.
I always thought it was the slight difference in the color of the sky, or the faint scent of salty ocean water in the air, and the sight of seagulls gliding in midair.
All of which whispered that the ocean was near.


I could feel that same sensation in San Francisco.
Strangely enough, I felt somewhat at home in this completely foreign city, which I have never set my foot on as long as I could remember.


The famous San Fran fog left a lasting impression on me.
We went down to Haight Street, where the whole hippie movement took place back in the 60's.
Most of us were (can't take credits for the others, but I definitely was) avid subscribers of American subcultures, which instigated us to travel to the other side of the Earth to actually spend a whole entire year with you crazy Americans.
The baits that got me were A-team, 90210, Colombo, Alf, Fullhouse, Back to the Future, Endless Summer, Extreme Sports, and Punk-O-Rama.
Be hold! the power of the mass media.
Mr. T really screwed up my life.

They used to air these shows on TV all dubbed in Japanese.
Brandon says, "konnichiwa!", seriously.
And all Japanese girls would have seizures and collapse like the fans at the Beatles concert.
You wish.


So when we went to the Haight Street, we were like an army of shopaholics.
I mean it was a center of hippie culture where most stores dealt with used clothing Salvation Army style. We weren't at Macy's, but with shopping bags hanging and swinging from our arms, we looked like we just came out of 5th Avenue.
Once again, Frodo, no, Harry must have cast a "Cultural Confusion" spell on all 26 of us.
(He swung his wand and shouted, "Cultus Confucius!!")

There we were, stopping over almost every single store on the street, buying up the whole store-full of second-hand clothing. Maybe it was Heidi, she could have been a witch.
The hippie dudes and chicks sitting on the street were kinda dazed away but definitely looking at us, but we thought "they are just curious because we are not hippies."


What I didn't tell you is that in the 90's, there was this huge fanatic trend for second-hand clothing, which perpetuated the entire Japan. It was driven by the fashion industry I suppose, but it was insane.
Retailers would come to the US and buy up used clothing and bring them back to Japan so that they can jack up the price to the stratosphere and make record high profits.

I remember one of the shops listed on popular fashion magazines in Tokyo was selling so-called vintage Levi's jeans for $10,000.
No, I did not put a comma/period in a wrong spot. Ten-thousand US dollars.
The thing was that the "true vintage" had to have "LEVI'S"(with capital letters), not regular "Levi's" (with lowercase letters) on a red tag located by the back pocket of the jeans.
They must have created the tags and sew them on, but hey, you never know.
Whatever. It was just absurd..

But brilliant! Why didn't I think of it!?
Amazing geniuses. "To those who are about to buy, I salute you!"

It was also linked to the whole grunge movement, which came out of the rainy city of Seattle just around the same time frame.
So now it makes perfect sense that we had to buy all these stores up religiously to reach Nirvana.
....



After about an hour of this, it was around 4 o'clock.
Despite the fact that it was July, as soon as you enter a shade, it was a bit chilly.
I tried to stay in the direct sun to stay warm. Then, I felt the temperature drop down, and all of the sudden, mysterious fog rolled in from nowhere.

I wasn't prepared, even though they had told me about it in the orientation.
I though the government was spraying DDT on us, to prevent the incurable shopaholism.
It was too late. We had already decimated the second-hand resources for the millenniums to come.

The above description totally ruined the mystique and poetic nature of this event.
Let's do it again.





After about an hour of wandering thorough the street where free-spirited youths once sang their songs of love and freedom, the mysterious fog rolled in from nowhere..
Just a split moment before this, I could see down the sunny stretch of the street for miles,
since it was a straight line.
The right hand side was up hill, and the left went down towards the water.
The fog rolled down the hill, pouring into the bay passing me sideways, as if it was in a hurry to cover up this dreamy street of love and freedom to keep it from being seen by the all-seeing-eye.
For a moment, I though the time had stopped.
Nothing moved, then disappeared.. the hippies hanging out on the street, cars, birds, and even the sounds around me has seized their cycles of vibration. I could not see anything but my feet. Everything disappeared into a complete whiteout as if I was on the top of Tetons in the height of winter.


I heard this sound, so peaceful and sweet, like a lullaby I once heard when I was a baby..
Then, it was over.
Fog rolled down the hill, and all beings on the street came back to their existence as if Michelangelo pulled a white sheet off his "Pieta" for the first time for the world to see.


It was one of those moments in life where I felt closer to the heavens.
The memory of this moment will stay with me for eternity.



..Then I saw the shopping bags swinging again.





As the end of our orientation neared, all of us were becoming more and more familiar with the city.
the program allowed us to wander around on our own, after the initial introduction, thanks to the generous help from Heidi.


There is another vivid memory of mine.
I took a bus downtown by myself, or maybe I was with Toshi and a few others, I don't remember.
I looked out the window and saw the bus was about to go over a bridge or a part of an overpass of the freeway (highway for Californians).
It must have been the mighty Golden Gate Bridge.

There were only handful people on the bus.
I had my favorite Shockwave Walkman in camouflage clipped on my belt with headphones on my ears. This was my routine in my high school life in Yokohama.
When you put on the headphones with the tunes of your beliefs, the whole cityscape starts to dance in musical ensemble, spinning with beats like a vinyl.
What I loved the most was being on the train in Japan with my headphones on.
Something about it, it was sublime.


The bus was now going over the bridge, and it was around the time when the sun was starting to lean its head on a broad shoulder of the horizon. I was sitting on a seat, which faced a window on the other side across the aisle.

Through the window was the most beautiful scenery I had ever seen.
The view of downtown San Fran shining in a golden backdrop cast by the setting sun, draped by the mystic fog of the Pacific.
The Transamerica Pyramid pointing to the heavens above, spinning the city around its axis.
Through the headphones I heard the songs of my time, a mix tape dedicated to our youthful journey composed by my good friend back home.


There is something about San Francisco.
Even after 15 years, these timeless memories take me back to where I was, who I was, and who I wished to be. I promised myself back then that I will stay young as long as I can.
I dearly and sincerely hope that this part of me will never truly change.

We age everyday and every moment as we speak.. at least physically.
We do everything we can to negate the relentless effects of passing time.. but we know that we cannot stop the time.
A good friend of mine once told me after returning from a trip to Machu Picchu,

"Yukito, there is no such thing as time."

It was the people of this country, the free, the brave, and the sometimes reckless,
who showed me that it is all up to what you hold dear in your heart.
Stay young in your heart, and you can live in youthful spirit forever.






... to be continued.






Thank you for reading.


I told you not to come back. I'm impulsive.
Just a nature of things.
Maybe next time, I will do Yosemite.
I hope I betrayed your expectations.
We need more of that today, not to expect anything out of life.
I think to myself.



love,

y