Culture Shock Redux.

Written for the next issue of Sunrunner Magazine is an article on the Old West and how it is still rooted deep in our minds. For over 15 years tourists have asked me the same rounds of questions  about the desert it's lore and the Old West as we walk, ride and drive about. Some of the more common ones questions are: Where are all the birds? Are there snakes here? Do you carry a gun? Why do people live here; what do they do? The second part of the question is easy to answer, the first part not so.

To answer that I in a manner citi-zens will understand I have moved to the San Francisco Bay area with my dog Jin. It's a lesson from my youth; to properly answer a question you have to know why it is being asked; "Why do we live here (in the desert)?" The Sun Runner Magazine article answers part of of the question and I could continue with a list going on for several volumes. Still there is one answer that stands out, the cacophony of  the city. It doesn't exist in the desert, not even in Palm Springs during biker weekend or spring break, it just doesn't exist. To visitors and tourists the lack of dissonance is so tangible that they comment on it when they talk about how the silence of the desert. 

So wherever you are, right now while reading this, pause. Stop and open a window; better yet, step outside and listen. If it's daytime you'll here the sounds associated with work and the local traffic. Perhaps people, kids, dogs all in the distance, in the background.
  
Listen even more carefully you'll hear planes flying at high altitude, cafes, in general life as it goes on around us rarely intruding and then it's usually when a fire truck comes rushing down the street or a band of motorcycles engines is shattering the relative silence. At night there is less and take a walk into the desert it is complete, even in mid-day. So peaceful that a quiet voice can be heard 1/2 a mile away. 

It is not so in the city. It is always in your face. Even on this peaceful relatively quiet island in the bay I can here ships, trains, BART, traffic, sirens, aircraft and more 24/7. More you can't get away from it even on a trip deep into a regional park. It is quite plainly still there, ceaseless and certainly not in the background. For the past two weeks the dominant note of discord has been helicopters patrolling the skies over the city where Occupy Oakland is encamped two miles in a straight line from my flat; and very plainly in my face.