Dreaming of San Rafael

October 16, 2018

California state of mind

I stayed once On a boat, Marina moored, In San Rafael.

In my mind It was to be glamorous.

But in reality, not so much.

Where were the Yachts and The beautiful girls In bikinis?

The drinks And boat shoes With parties Into the night?

Instead, Moldy aroma, Galleys too small, hand-pump toilets.

Charming is Too generous, But certainly Memorable.

Sad captains That all appear To be divorced Dads who got little Else but the aging Houseboat.

Ironic that among All these bound vessels There are so many Souls unmoored from life,

Adrift in a universe That hardly knows they Exist.

Here, in San Raphael.

A view from an evening at Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon

Okay, so it was not quite so melancholy as my reflections sound. But it did rain the entire time we were on the water. And the characters really were quite shady. But we had fun. It reminded me of van-life, only you could drown. We had a great time, I recall, watching Jake Gyllenhaal host SNL and watching Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang late into the morning.

And San Rafael was a delightful place to live for a short spell. We took in a great film festival and met lovely people. I think this was the first time I recall the clash of a very posh environment with the homelessness problem. Of course this was more than half of a decade ago. So it was quite surprising then.

Jellybean loved this little organic Tibeten place. All vegan as I recall. And a view of the bay bridge from Berkley. Hey, how can you tell if someone is vegan? They’ll tell you.