Akolia's Avenue

I did the Big Sur with Irene Ahn. I’ve wanted to go since freshman year of high school, but never made it happen. And finally, right before I enter another life chapter that demands structure and punctuality, I did.

Northern California is genuinely a buffet for the soul. It’s everything at once: cities, forests, ocean, cliffs, lakes, fog, sun, and people who look both emotionally stable and hardworking but know how to rave. The air smells like eucalyptus and clarity. Even the dogs are different. I never considered myself that much of a dog person, probably because every dog on the East Coast has diagnosable anxiety and is seemingly one inconvenience away from throwing a fit. But here in SF, every single dog seemed calm and emotionally regulated.

The trip itself was short. I’m not sure exactly what I had romanticized, maybe some sepia-toned idea saved in a TikTok folder, set to a Sufjan Stevens song and soundtracked by the fantasy of “getting away.” But what I actually got was something better.

Sitting on a random cliff with Irene, eating day-old biryani and spicy asf momos with a knife, sugar-free Red Bull, Fritos dust on my fingers, looking objectively unwell but feeling deeply at peace. That version of Big Sur was not curated or aesthetic. It was oddly grounding. At some point, we both agreed that seeing one more scenic overlook wasn’t worth the drive. The views were beautiful, but the stress of driving on the side of a mountain outweighed the serotonin. Would it, on jah, kill the state to install a railing? Or would that ruin the ambiance? Because, personally, it was the lack of railing that was fing with my blood pressure.

What I didn’t expect was how genuinely sad I felt when the trip ended. I’ve been to places like Portugal and Japan, but I wasn’t expecting to miss California in this way. It wasn’t the grandeur of the place. It was something quieter. I felt joyful in a way I rarely do, not excited, not hyped , just unreasonably relaxed. it gave no paradox of choice like there was no internal pressure to optimize the day.

I felt unperformatively present. That’s not something I get to say often. I wasn’t hiding behind music or movement or something to plan. It was just me, my friend, the wind, and the realization that joy might actually live in eating slightly smashed strawberries on a cliff. That sounds small, but it wasn’t. It felt like I had briefly returned to a version of myself that doesn’t need to know what’s next. A version that’s chill with a patch of land.

Anyways we saw seals that looked like guiltless chunky shihtuhs (we named them Rebecca, Basanti Balbu, and Mufasa) We stopped to watch men dancing to their own noises and asking people for money (ive seen the same group in nyc, portugal, madrid… but I still stop). I have not stopped saying, “He’s like a boneless chicken wing… where the BBQ sauce at?” since.

I ran from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Golden Gate Bridge because I had to combat the lack of sleep. I stumbled upon beach yoga. I also went inside the Meta building. For balance.

On Mount Tam, we watched the sun set above the clouds and I received words of affirmation to make it back down the mountain. At Big Sur, we ate berries and stared at the ocean from a roadside pull-off. We kept stopping at scenic overlooks that looked identical, but each one still made us gasp.

We had the kind of conversations that weren’t productive, but they were necessary. Mild brainrot. Ethical debates about driving cliffside without signal. Existential complaints about getting tan and burned under a “near-constant cover of clouds and rain.” We missed the same turn six times. The Buick we rented began tweaking. Our phones stopped working. we were being gently exiled from modern life, which honestly felt deserved after how many TikToks we had sent to each other about the place… with no signal.

We played House when the sun came out. We played Bon Iver and hozier when the fog returned. I ran up a hill while inebriated and immediately fell. My phone hasn’t worked since. We looked unwell most of the time, but we were excited to exist and laughed about the whatnots (highest form of self-actualization.)

San Francisco left its mark too. I can’t stop thinking about the Marina District and the Golden Gate Park. Maybe not the vertical streets (my calves are suing). But most of the city made me feel something close to contentment (luckily didnt stumble upon the tenderloin)

At one point on a long walk, we got into a conversation about people and place and whether home is about who you’re with or where you are, or if it’s just about feeling like yourself. I’ve been thinking about it more than usual because I’m about to move to another state, and everything suddenly feels like it means more than it probably does. We didn’t figure anything out, but it made me realize how often we project meaning onto places just to avoid the discomfort of change. Starting over is disorienting, not in a tragic way, but in the way where no one knows your routines yet and stories. Sometimes people make the place. Other times, a place shifts something in you that people can’t. Also, just the truth: even if you leave, the people who love you won’t. They’ll still be there, whether through a text, a FaceTime, a drive, or a flight away.

I guess I enjoyed North Cal. Nothing needed context (everyone accepted Karl and called it a day). That’s why it sent me that the city was filled with AI startup billboards and silent Waymo cars gliding by with slogans like “scale human potential.” Kind of funny, because nothing about this trip felt optimized or artificial.

Foogle (fake google) Review:
★★★★★ 4.9/5
left with a tan. restroom access limited. saw god in the fog. cliffs slayed. phone didn’t survive but my emotional intelligence leveled up. norcal 4ever.