JD's Journal : A Fork in the Road

There is a fork in the road - well there are many, of course - but this is a particular one. If you stay on the highway, 280, six lanes, going fast, you will end up heading down into Silicon Valley. The scenic and monied route, to be sure, past the quietly ultra-expensive offices of Sand Hill Road, the Stanford campus, the super-burbs of Atherton and Los Altos.

That was my drive to work for a few years, and a part of my life for many years after that - the 8am commute to a meeting at Sun or Apple or Intel, or some smart-ass San Jose startup. A bunch of (mostly) men in a room, casually dressed but intense, no windows, usually - if you were lucky a view of the parking lot. Talk of synergies and deals and "we're very excited about XXX", where XXX would be some piece of software, probably never to be finished, certain, even if finished, to be obsolete in two years. Maybe a deli sandwich for lunch - all cold mayo and cheese. Talking on the cellphone on the way back home, picking up voice mail, leaving updates for the boss ("they're very excited..."), getting ready for the crises back at the office. Shoulders tense. The world condensed to the virtual - all theories, ideas, opinions. And money. Always money.

That's 280. If you go right, though, at the fork, well, now you're on Highway 1. Up the hill into the fog, down the other side, start to check the surf - how big at the Pacifica pier? Stop at Linda Mar and poodle around? Nah, not today. Through Pacifica, crane your neck to the right to see if Rockaway is working (it isn't, you know that). Blow off Linda Mar, and now you're talking an all-day mission. Check the spots all the way down to Santa Cruz. Look at all those peaks around Pescadero that never quite seem surfable. Maybe end up at the Lane, take in the sunshine and the scene, get a few waves out of the pack. Maybe not. Maybe park the car, walk through a meadow and get a spot to yourself - not as good as the Lane, blows out fast, but solitude is its own reward.

Three or four hours in the water, sunshine, freezing cold. A coffee in the car after the session and every particle of your body and brain feels like it's been taken out and polished and then wiped down with a scented cloth and put back by a master watch-maker.

Drive slowly back up Highway 1, watching the waves, loving the sunshine. Rejoin 280.

Give thanks, once again, that you have the time and the grace to take the better fork in the road.

my email is: jdj@pacificwaverider.com

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