On Coming Home

The view from East Cliff Drive.
Photo by Madeline Horn

I left Santa Cruz 16 years ago, eager to experience the grit and humanity of the city that was resolutely unavailable in the sleepy beach town I was raised in. Nearly two months ago I returned to my mother’s house to live, where I was raised. At 18 years of age I left my mom’s house and spent the next 16 years in Oakland, San Francisco, Madrid, New York City, and Peru. I’ve travelled for months at a time, visiting Asia, South America, Central America, Africa, and Europe. I am shocked when I realize I have spent nearly half my life away from Santa Cruz, this place that shaped me, this place where I was born.

The air in Santa Cruz is clean. I smell the ocean, and sometimes kelp in my neighborhood. At night I hear waves crashing on the shore. When the sky is clear at night I see constellations. I can walk to the ocean and see its massive expanse and say to myself, “I am at the end of the earth.” The sea is therapeutic, bringing oxygen and inspiration to the mind. Nature’s wonders lull Santa Cruz residents. The world outside Santa Cruz becomes increasingly unattractive and sometimes sounds just plain bothersome compared to the calm natural beauty of this place. Walks along the ocean take precedence over trips to the store. Outsiders flock here for rejuvenation, as I used to on weekends before I moved back. Living here again, I just don’t want to leave.

Pleasure Point, on the east side of Santa Cruz, is my neighborhood, once dubbed the last surf ghetto, for its funky affordable housing within blocks of some of the best surfing in the world. Jack O’Neill, inventor of the wetsuit, lives here, overlooking the waves with his eye patch. East Cliff Drive, a street lined by cliffs overlooking the ocean, is the focal point of the neighborhood. East Cliff has been spruced up since I went to high school here. The dot com phenomenon brought internet entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley, purchasing homes and driving up prices. A few luxury townhouses now stand where rambling hippie beach houses once were. Thankfully, overall, despite the invasion of new money, Pleasure Point looks more or less the same as it did in the 1980s and 90s. Houses cost more now, but many families, including mine, never gave up their little slice of funky beach heaven, and never intend to. Men and boys wear Dickies or Ben Davis pants with a Santa Cruz sweatshirt or t-shirt, sunglasses, and vans. Their hair is short and often blond. Accessories include tattoos, baseball caps or beanies, skateboard, bike, and/or surfboard. When it’s hot they go shirtless. They look exactly the same as they did in 1989. This is not a trend, this is a uniform they are born into and live in comfortably forever. Women and girls dress slightly trendier, but the basic look is the same depending on the weather. Sunny? Beachy casual. Foggy? Santa Cruz sweatshirt with jeans, yoga pants, or shorts. Their hair is long. After 16 years in the city I am trying to tone down my look so I don’t stand out so much amongst my casual neighbors.

Surfers at the Point
Photo by Madeline Horn

Pleasure Point revolves around surfing. The ocean serves as a beacon, which residents check in with multiple times a day. On a typical day, I make a point to take the beach route in my car when running errands. This means I drive as slow as 15 miles per hour, behind classic VW vans or white contractor trucks driven by surfers checking out the waves and checking in with their friends who are walking or biking the same route, on my way to get groceries. The lack of speed doesn’t bother me because I too am checking out the waves, and possibly their good-looking friends. In addition to driving by the ocean I walk or bike to the beach every day. This is typical Point-dweller behavior, for both people with ample time and those with families and full time jobs. We are living the good life and we know it. I find myself not wanting to leave my neighborhood because I feel an umbilical connection to the streets, trees, waves, sand, and the people. These are my people and Santa Cruzans on the other side of town just aren’t the same.

My attachment to the Point is all in my head. I don’t have any friends in Pleasure Point anymore. Yes, my mother raised me here with my two little sisters, who have both moved away, like I did before them. My grandmother lives a mile away, near the harbor and a very short block from the beach. Pleasure Point is where I babysat, learned to ride a bike, worked at a pizza place, snuck out at night, searched for fossils in tide pools, had bonfires on the beach, took the school bus, and ate eggrolls and candy from Kong’s Market up the street. I ride my bike around the neighborhood every day and I’ve run into very few people that I know. Regardless, Pleasure Point is in my blood.

Waves at Pleasure Point
Photo by Madeline Horn

My lack of connections could be because I never identified with the culture of the Point growing up. If I had, I never would have left. I was interested in foreign film, fashion, and punk rock, none of which could be found in my neighborhood. I also sported bi-hawks in high school with plaid pegged pants, a patched up bomber jacket, and combat boots. This is not to say I did not appreciate the beach. At certain times growing up I went daily with my friends after school. However, I never surfed, and I found most surfers and skaters to be cocky. Thankfully I wasn’t picked on, but I heard them brag about fights with outsiders that came to the neighborhood to surf, and about misogynistic conquests on the weekends. They weren’t brilliant conversationalists, did not seem to respect women, and were thuggishly protective of the paradise we lived in. Their main interests seemed to be the ocean, beer, and weed. I was not interested in dating these guys, and there was not a noticeable clique of Point girls. My girlfriends in the neighborhood and I did not mingle much with the surfers or skaters, except during class periods at school.

The “locals only” sentiment still exists today. Many cars sport bumper stickers with “local” stickers. However, now that East Cliff Drive has been spruced up with gasp…. landscaping (to my mother’s chagrin – she hates change to her beloved neighborhood), and new staircases, making the waves much more accessible to surfers, Point-dwellers have had some time to get used to outsiders enjoying their surfers’ paradise. I know not everyone in the neighborhood has been here their whole life; there are certainly transplants that have adapted and fit right in. Even though all my good friends have left, I am proud and thankful to be a local.

Pleasure Point has always been “cool,” with surf and skate companies, coffee shops, and a string of vintage shops along 41^st Avenue. However, we’re reaching the next level now, with new hotels catering to beach goers (the east side of Santa Cruz has never been a tourist destination), Verve Coffee Roasting Company roasting their own beans and serving outstanding coffee, and the Penny Ice Creamery soon to be scooping artisanal cones on 41^st. Pleasure Point is now a place an out of town visitor can visit to sleep, eat, drink, and play; on a side of Santa Cruz that most visitors never see. Pleasure Point is the best side, the authentic side - beautiful, bohemian, and not overrun with tourists at all. The people you see on the sidewalks and beaches enjoying themselves? They live here. They were probably born into this, and they never get sick of it, because they are truly living the good life. 

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