The Transition Zone: Berkeley, CA

Friday Missive: June 6, 2025

I moved to the East Bay in 2022 and lived in my weird little apartment in Berkeley for two years. It was my first time living alone, and I will always love that space for the freedom and autonomy it gave me. Was it very old and janky? Yes. Did the windows close all the way? No. Was there a mysterious hole in wall of the tiny kitchen? Yes. But it was mine, and I loved it. I moved there while I had a job I really liked, got laid off, was unemployed for frankly too long, got a job I hated, burned out, stuck it out, somehow reached a new level of burn out, quit, was unemployed for frankly too long again, and then got my current job… In short, that space got through me a lot.

Berkeley was a time of huge transition for me in a lot of ways. The job saga yes, but also I grew up so much in those two years. I adopted my boys while I lived in that apartment, and got to watch them bloom from shy little guys to still-shy but much cuddlier little guys. I made a best friend. Grew my hair out. Totaled a car. Started dancing again. Went through a break up. By the time I left Berkeley I was almost 100% new growth compared to the me that left San Francisco.

While my life in the East Bay was marked by some pretty big dramatic moments, when I think about my time in Berkeley it’s the little things that really stand out. See the following:

• The roses outside my stairwell were absolutely insane, I would stop to smell them every day on my way in or out of my house. There was a yellow and pink one that I particularly loved, the blooms were as big as my hand and it smelled amazing.

  

• There was an abandoned house a few blocks away from me (maybe it caught on fire at some point?), and their yard was really overgrown. Once, I met a really friendly old orange cat who came slithering out of the tall grass to greet me. We had such a nice conversation, he gave me a lot of head bonks, and then we went our separate ways. I literally never saw him again, but every time I walked by that yard I would look for him. For like a whole year.

• The little corner of the Optometry School patio where Lauren and I used to go to eat lunch. It was protected from the wind and thus usually kind of warm, even when it was a chilly day. While there was seemingly always someone leaf blowing in the vicinity, it was usually the best part of my work day.

• The neighborhoods above College Ave are set on really steep hills and in a few places they have pedestrian staircases to help you traverse the (basically) cliff-sides. My favorite loop went up and then down through the neighborhood with my favorite fixer upper, the amazing sunroom house, and the cool Mediterranean white and blue house, then down the pedestrian stairs past the elementary school garden, and back down into my neighborhood.

• Maybe the best thing about where I lived was how quickly you could get up the hill and onto the base of the fire trails that go back into the mountains. I went through seasons of walking that hill every day, escaping my life for just a few minutes via altitude gain, dry grass, and trees. The view from up there is insane, and the bench at the top has held me through many many moments of emotional crisis.

  

• There used to be a tea shop on College that had a little upstairs seating area. For some reason, and I truly can’t explain it, if you sat by the window upstairs some combination of the view, the smell, and the overall vibes felt exactly like being in Spain. Really odd, but lovely and nostalgic for me.

While I’m talking about the East Bay I would be remiss not to give a shout out to the city of Oakland. There was a little diner in the Lower Bottoms that was only open when the owners felt like it, but which served the most intense and delicious Vietnamese coffee. There’s a little park out on the point by the Port of Oakland where you can not only see the city, but also, more importantly, you can see all of the big cranes working! I’ll miss walking around the lake, and the Caribbean food, and probably even the sideshows. Side note about that, I remain totally fascinated by the way sideshows are organized — how do people know they’re happening? Is there a text chain? Facebook group? Because literally hundreds of people show up, in cars, on scooters, on foot, from every direction, but they always get shut down eventually by the police, so you probably wouldn’t want a public event out there… It’s a mystery.

All in all, the East Bay felt like real life to me in a way that San Francisco never quite did. It’s full of real people living normal lives, and I think that’s the environment I needed to learn how to be an adult. I’m so grateful for the connections I made, the friends I get to keep forever, and every bougainvillea bloom that helped to make my time in Berkeley so colorful.

PS I pulled back out my full 2023 Playlist to listen to while writing this and wow, music really does take you back. This is the cumulation of all of my monthly playlists for the whole year, and you can see that I went through some pretty distinct phases… Anyways, feel free to take a listen if you’d like to really dip into my Berkeley mindset.

Current Events:

Tonight we have our last Santa Clara Ballroom practice of the year. I cannot tell you how much of a gift it’s been to work with this team for the year. It’s a very young team with a lot of true beginners, and thus I’ve been around to witness so many firsts — their first competitions, their first time being on-time for a whole round, their first finals, first practice rounds at the studio… The joy of teaching beginners is that they start with nothing, which means whatever you teach them is automatically a 100% improvement!

However, these particular beginners have come with the additional joy of being really amazing people to work with. They have put in so much effort in the face of no practice space, no good practice times, and no advanced dancers to emulate. I have no doubt that they are going to continue to grow this team over the next few years, and that makes me happy. When our competitive season ended, they asked me if I would help them put together a formation piece for the end of year dance department showcase. We choreographed a Pirates of the Caribbean tango, and they put in the work to get it ready in time. Many of them had never really performed for the stage before, but they threw themselves right in! Our performance was on Wednesday and I’m so so so so so proud of them.

They really took the pirate dress code seriously

Last weekend I went home to bring some things to my parents house and also pick up some stuff to take to Indiana. It was a sort of warm-up road-trip for the big road-trip I guess. When I came back down my dad came with me and stayed for a couple of nights. While he was here we went to walk around San Jose State, one of his alma maters, because he wanted to see if the ceramics department was still in the same place (he got his BFA in ceramics). To my surprise, not only was the department still in basically the same place, but there were some people volunteering that let us come in and look around. Even better, one of the volunteers, Ted, was a student at the same time my dad was, so my dad got all the updates on which professors are still around, what has happened with the department, etc etc. It’s always weird to be confronted with your parents’ past lives, but I’m glad I got a glimpse into this one.

Side note: Ted does a lot of art and it is very cool! His website is here.

Well, we’re reaching the end here. Next week is my last full week of work, and the moving-mode is really starting to kick in. This weekend I’m going to be working on purge #1 (underwear, socks, and other things that should just get thrown away / recycled), and then moving on to the goodwill / give away stage. Eeeks!

Thank you so much for coming along on this adventure with me, I should have lots of updates by next week! In the meantime have a great weekend, and thanks for being here :)

xoxo,