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Health & Fitness

What Matters to Us: Culture Shock - Venturing from the Suburban Bubble to the Haight

Haight, Haight Ashbury, Moraga, Lafayette, orinda, Lamorinda, scary, head shops, Grateful Dead, San Francisco

I tried, I really tried.  I figured I would just take a stroll on Haight and not take myself so seriously, not get so overwhelmed by the hordes of strange and stranger looking creatures, not feel like I am visiting an alien planet where they don’t have people who look and think like me.  It actually started off OK, not too many tourists today due to the bizarre winter rain and cold in this first week of June. The street vendors are still hawking wool hats and no one ever knows how to dress. Mark Twain was right about SF summers.  If Mark Twain could be surprised, and I’d say from the tenor of the comment, uncomfortable in SF, I guess so can I.

Each shop has its own ambiance, from the smell to the choice of music, both of which greet passers-by on the sidewalk. The allure of the incense draws me into the first. I'm doing well!  I even know the words to the songs they are playing.  The salesgirl is wearing a retro suit and heels, which looks familiar except for the tattoos up and down her legs.

The Height is permanently stuck in the 60's when it comes to the Grateful Dead and head  shops.  But what do I know of the 60's?  I was a ridiculously straight arrow back in New Jersey, fearful of my peers who seemed ready to blow up the world, as I knew it.  I remember like it was yesterday, the dream in which my dark backyard was filled with silent candle bearing hippies.  When I leaned out the second storey window, the heat from those candles burned me.  It was like that for me back then. I was an old married lady in a 20 year- old body not wanting to make waves.   I also avoided crowds and especially those that were chanting anything or stamping feet.  We know where that can lead.

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Getting back to Haight Street, I thought I had this thing handled and then I came upon a shop/gallery called "Loved to Death".  The subtitle was something like "taxidermy, jewelry and art".  Interesting. I like art.  In the window are boxes, each with a dead rodent or bird, dressed in period clothing, surrounded by furniture and miniature props.  Each has a story written at the base of its little universe.  They are catchy, literary references and the whole thing is fascinating and at the same time scares the hell out of me. Did someone have  to KILL these central characters, dress them and spend their solitary moments coming up with story lines?  No wait, it seems, upon researching the place, they use"recycled parts from animals that would otherwise just go to waste." (This takes recycling to a whole new level.) Then they took the obvious many hours to construct each piece lovingly (I'm assuming the affection due to the name of the shop).  Having created art pieces for the last 35 years myself, I know that feeling.  Almost like giving birth, then proudly displaying the loved creation.  Someone loved a squirrel that way.  And I'm assuming it was intact under that velvet dress...I have no way of knowing if was in fact beheaded, since only the head and paws are visible.  I'll keep assuming it was intact or I may never sleep again.  Still I am fascinated.  But there are so many, some with little black bird heads, some I don't recognize because I don't usually come upon vermin in velvet.  An then my ears turned on and I realized there was some strange discordant music playing behind the large, black haired girl dressed in black (velvet, of course, to keep the theme consistent).   I bolted for the door.

I know this neighborhood has always been known for its weirdness.  My ex-hippie husband who grew up here, giving bread out to the poor, can recite detailed histories of many neighborhoods.  I imagine there were those then who were the age I am now who were equally frightened of the youth in the heyday of the Haight.  Somehow, and I am probably biased here, I think there was more of an aura of Love around that weirdness.  Although much of it was probably drug-induced, Love was supposedly the answer.  I'm not sure what the answer is supposed to be here.  I am noticing the only people close to my age are homeless or lurking in doorways of bars, and there aren't many at that. Although I believe in individualism and appreciate it art and writing, I am scared of the coldness, the disconnect in the faces going by. There are altars to love for dead animals but I don't sense any in the air here. Everyone is free to be unique, a freak, but I'm not so sure anyone would notice if I had a black eye or fainted.  It's probably only me being overly sensitive, but I think I'll get my chai latte to go and head for home, fast. 

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