Saturday, May 3, 2014

Culture shock in Clovis

I've been back in my hometown of Clovis/Fresno for less than a month. I've been unpacking, acclimating, and catching up on rest. I've been exhausted from moving out of my apartment in Albuquerque as well as the 1,000 mile drive that I did in 2 days! The landscape was spectacular as I drove from the Southwest back to California. I have a deeper appreciation for the beautiful fertile farmland in the Central Valley in California, where I grew up. It's incredible to drive through Eastern California through the Mojave Desert and then to gradually transition into driving into beautiful farmland in the Central Valley. Most of the produce that I bought in Albuquerque was shipped from California and 2x or 3x the price of organic produce in California. I'm grateful for beautiful and rich farmland. The San Joaquin Valley is known as the Breadbasket of the World. California is truly the Golden State in many ways. It's a shift for me to see such cultivated land rather than the wilds of the New Mexican landscape. Albuquerque was so quiet. It's the only city where I've lived that is completely surrounded by uncultivated land. I do appreciate and have a core need for peace and quiet. Yet, while living in ABQ, I realized that I need a balance of excitement as well as peace and quiet. Living in a City surrounded by wild, desert land made ABQ seem like it was in the middle of nowhere. Well, it's in the middle of the desert. Yet, as a young, creative person I need more of that balance that I mentioned.

For me, the desert is a place for me to go for a stint of time. To work on a creative art project or movie, a place to focus on healing, a place for visioning, cleansing, purging, and getting perspective on one's life. As well as being open to the clarity that comes from being in the desert, in the Southwest. There is no place like the Southwest that I've traveled to on this planet. I have an immense amount of deep respect, appreciation, and reverence for the desert, and the Spirits of the Land. I'm grateful for my perspective, lessons, and recent chapter there.

A bunch of my friends in the Bay Area said to me when I visited in March and then again in April for Passover that it felt like they had seen me yesterday. For me, it felt like so much time had passed. From the month that I spent in Portland during September 2013 to the 6 months I had lived in the desert. So much had happened in the chapter that I lived. To my friends who were still in the Bay Area, our conversations and connections picked up from where they had left off. It was as if I had time traveled for a stint of time and returned the next day. I have changed profoundly. While my friends see me as the same person that they had seen just a day before. Time is a construct. Time is.

Edward Abbey said something to the degree that it's so important that some land is left wild and untamed. It's so healthy for the human soul to gaze out on such vast landscapes and see wild land, wild nature. Just as it is. Without any human intervention, cultivation, infrastructure, urban planning, branding, etc.

In Clovis, I've been helping my parents with purging things in the garage. We had a yard sale. I've sold stuff on Craigslist, etc.
I'm glad to be back in California. Yet, I am in the process of discerning my next steps. I've been looking for resonant temp. work in the Clovis/Fresno area, rather than long-term work since I will be going on a wonderful professional film opportunity at the end of May. It's the Pride Of The Ocean Film Festival opportunity. I'll be going to NYC and then on a film festival cruise to Bermuda! My film, Change Over Time will screen. I am very much looking forward to the opportunity!

I've been experiencing culture shock in my own hometown of Clovis. Although, I haven't lived here for years, there is more to it than that. To quote, Jem Bluestein, "I'm an anomaly." This is in reference to me being from the Clovis/Fresno area. Yes, I was born and raised here physically, yet I resonate more with the culture, art, progressive politics, consciousness, and intellectualism of being from a more urban area. Such as the Bay Area. I get my cultural, culinary, literary, and art aesthetics and sensibilities from my Mom who was raised in Berkeley during her teen years in the 1960's and also lived with her family in France and Israel in her late teens and early twenties. My Mom's experiences living and traveling in Europe had an immense impact on her artistic, fashion, and culinary sensibilities, consciousness, and aesthetics. So, yes. I am an anomaly in the Central Valley. I never fit in here and I'm glad that I don't. I'm grounded in who I am and I'm grateful to be me. There are qualities and cultural aspects in Clovis that I forget, that aren't on the forefront of my everyday experiences anymore. Perhaps, they are buried. Until this most recent visit/stint of living here.

For example, seeing some hairstyles that I haven't seen in years since living here. There was a braid on the entire backside of a woman's head. I haven't seen that hairstyle since I was in high school. Hearing a man behind me with a cowboy hat tell a cashier at the grocery store that he's in town since his daughter is in the rodeo this weekend. A woman behind me at the grocery store asking me what the cucumber and tehini I'm buying is for? What will I make with it? I told her that I was going to make hummus. She then proceeded to ask me, "when did I learn how to eat healthy?" A conversation like that would probably not happen in line at the Berkeley bowl.

I volunteered last week to photograph pictures of Raw Fresno at the Old Town Clovis Farmer's Market. Unbeknownst to me it was during the 100th Anniversary of the Clovis Rodeo Parade. I watched as the Clovis High School Marching band paraded along the street. As well as the Clark marching band and others. Then a truck full of smiling, high school cheerleaders, cheering. Also, a lot of American flags, horses, and vestiges of the pioneer history and remnants, such as a sign that said, "California or bust" on a wagon or old-fashioned car. As well as horses with people decked out in Western wear and Mexican-Americans, sporting the Mexican flag to show, to me a reminder that California belonged to Mexico until 1848, The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. People alongside the streets wore Western wear and cowboy hats. The Clovis Rodeo was completely sold out and people wanted more tickets. Snippets of conversations here and there. I gazed at the parade with earplugs in since there were many blank gun shots from rifles that kept being shot into the air. Also, a strong military presence was in the parade. This reminded me of all of the Clovis High school rallies in the Gym, Football games, and overall Clovis culture that I never resonated with and always felt like an outsider from. An "Other" in my own hometown. I watched the drum line as they marched by and I thought of all of the fierce and sexist competition from the boys as well as the teachers that I put up with just to be on the drum line. I was in the marching band when I was in Middle school at Clark and for a year at Clovis High. The farmer's market across the street that sold organic produce where I was, wasn't in existence when I was in high school. Yes, things are changing, yet that dominant Clovis culture, that is "The Clovis Way Of Life" still does exist here. Thus, my feelings/experiences of culture shock.

Thanks for reading! More to come!

Feel free to comment or like if you are inspired, since my blog audience is a silent audience.

Light and wellness,

Ewan

No comments: