Out west

Only now, breathing the (relatively) fresh air of the tree-lined streets of Palo Alto, am I digesting just how hot and hectic New York was. It's like the pressure of the thick, stifling humidity and the legendary pace and attitude radiating out from Manhattan left little room in my psyche for reflective appreciation. I loved New York, but another visit, more time, and less heat will be necessary for me to enjoy it all fully in the moment.

Before I left, I had a few intense experiences to round off my stay. Visiting the psychedelic gallery of visionary artist Alex Grey, his Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, was awe-inspiring. No other art display I've seen more sharply emphasizes the gap between the experience of the actual works and any high-quality reproductions you might see in books. The space is a lovingly crafted frame for the paintings as a whole, definitely veering towards the hippy side of things, but with this potentially off-putting vibe undercut (or rather, focused into richer whole) by Grey's Tibetan-tinged passion for embracing the messy, painful and despairing shades of being alive, pulling them with compassion and clarity fully into his vision. The image of a woman giving birth (in his customary energy/flesh x-ray style) brought a tear to my eye, as did some of the Joe Coleman-esque details, tiny panels of suffering and pain, in his stupendous mandalic visions of Gaia and the Cosmic Christ. You have to visit this place if you visit New York - and if you catch a full moon here, I've heard the parties thrown in the gallery at these times are one of the best connections to the current psychedelic scene around.

Then there came what I guess was an obligatory New York subway nightmare. After a wonderful night of sushi with my new friend Gin, then drinking in the balmy back garden of the Brooklyn café where she works, I hopped onto the G train to get back to Queens where Jason Louv lives. Only, the Queens-bound track was out, with both directions running from the same platform - and I absent-mindedly jumped on the train going the wrong way. It took me a few stations to clock what had happened, and was a little disoriented when I got off, meaning the fact that trains going both ways had the same destination on them left me not knowing which direction to catch. I asked the one guy on the platform, on his way home from working on the other track, which direction to take. My only guess is he couldn't be bothered to think for this limey jerk at 2am, because the train he told me to get on was going deeper into Brooklyn. By this time I wondered whether Jason was still up, as I'd told him I'd be back by 1am. I tried his mobile from a subway phone - no reply. When I finally got the north-bound train and made it back to the station I'd started from - nearly an hour later! - I guessed my best bet was to call Gin, who lived near Nassau station and had told me about her insomnia (oh, sheesh, was that one of those feminine hints I miss all the time?!). So, I call Gin. No reply. Jason again. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. As they say here.

Sitting next to a payphone in a vaguely dodgy neighbourhood in Brooklyn at 2.30am, on the off-chance that one of your probably sleeping friends will call back, watching black-windowed vehicles cruise past slowly, trying to look nonchalant (and probably failing abysmally)... well, it's not my idea of fun. Still, I try to be shamanic about these things. To me they're an essential part of traveling: intense experiences of dislocation and uncertainty that gradually shake those encrusted pillars of daily routine out of their foundations. It's all part of the trip, man.

The flight over was great. Window seat, a row to myself, my first taste of genuinely heart-racing turbulence, Björk in my ears with her soaring refrain, "this state of emergency / how beautiful to be"... The in-flight movie, Hitch with Will Smith, was vaguely passable romantic comedy (i.e. crap), but it was fascinating to see a film that foregrounded the glamour and romance of Manhattan having just been there. Or did it just seem like it foregrounded it, my awareness of its realities suddenly highlighting its presence - like a fish suddenly registering the water? In any case, don't bother with the film unless you're on a 6-hour flight.

Traversing the whole country by air was deeply fascinating, on the small scale of spotting landscape oddities across the mid-west (what were those circular fields about?), and on the large scale of just registering the crazy expanse of this ostensibly united country. Chasing the sunset west (by now my MP3 shuffler had pulled Tom Waits out to sing 'Goin' Out West' from Bone Machine), the beauty of the angled solar rays delicately brushing and shading the fluffy carpet of clouds below us was drawn out exquisitely through the whole journey. It was dark as we hit California, the half moon just picking out snow on the Sierra Nevada mountains, its reflection gracefully sliding over the black surfaces of lakes. The lights of the towns, cities and freeways as we neared San Francisco were jaw-dropping, like profane crystalline hallucinations of jeweled alien metropolises.

I marred my arrival slightly with a bit of a mix-up at the airport which left Jim's old schoolfriend Philippe circling the nearby roads for close to an hour (sorry Philippe!). But the contrast from New York - the drop in air temperature matched by a tangible increase in warmth emanating from the people and surroundings here - made for an entirely pleasant rush of satisfying arrival. Philippe lives - with his wife Elizabeth and charming kids Evan and Sophie - in the very wealthy suburbs of Palo Alto, close to the heart of America's tech industry, and the spacious streets, wonderfully designed houses, and general ambiance of comfort and creativity give the impression of a community of people who know how to use wealth well, to make life better instead of just gaudier and more hectic. I'm sure there's a flipside (there always is) but so far I'm soaking it up happily. Lemon trees, fruit markets, coffee shops playing The Life Aquatic soundtrack, even details like the marvelous curved sidewalk curbs and the elegant push-button restroom locks - all add up to a very nice place to be.