An ode to San Francisco, written in May of 2010 for I Live Here: SF.
Someone once told me that I live a charmed life. Since this was in a job interview, I can only assume that my resume writing skills are truly formidable. She was right though, especially when it comes to address. I’ve lived in some good spots – Manhattan, London, and Florence (if you want to be generous with your definition of “lived in.”) But this eccentric grand dame of a city has always seemed brighter than other places. Even when socked in by fog. Anyone who gets me started on the subject of San Francisco better have some serious time on their hands or no compunction about telling a bright-eyed, ever-so-slightly obnoxious history geek to shut her flapping trap already. I tell people about how the Flood Building (where I worked for five years) was one of the few buildings left standing downtown after the earthquake and fires of 1906. Next comes a detailed dissertation on the Gold Rush-era ships buried under the Financial District. Soon I’m pulling out my iPhone for an enforced viewing of a streetcar making its way down 1905 Market Street, complete with witty commentary about how nimble early San Francisco pedestrians were.
Born and raised amid the suburban strip malls of San Jose, San Francisco was my first real city – it’s where I saw my first show, first recognized my brother’s tender heart as he sobbed at his first glimpse of a homeless man, ate seafood on the wharf. At eighteen, I fled to New York for college and developed grand plans to live abroad (and in Vermont, for some reason) before putting down roots in San Francisco. But after graduating, I moved right back to the Bay Area and was drawn up the Peninsula like a homing pigeon to its grain-filled roost. San Francisco sucked me in ten years ago and hasn’t let go since.
One of my favorite things to do is step out my front door and start walking – three blocks up the hill to Alamo Square Park to dodge tourists and nuzzle any unwary dogs who stray across my path, down the hill to Haight Street for sausage and beer, across Market to lie on the grass in Dolores Park, clutching a morning bun and listening to the buzz of conversation above me as the sun seeps into my bones. When my life feels like it’s careening wildly off course – as life tends to do – I’ll find myself roaming park trails, staring at my green sneakers and puzzling through some overly contemplative thought process. (Known euphemistically as Figuring My Shit Out.) Soon I’ll find myself staring out over the city – the glossy buildings of downtown, church spires wrapped in fog, the Golden Gate in the distance – and thinking, “Even if nothing else in my life is going right, at least I have this. At least I live here.”
I love that San Francisco is a city of adventurers, hearty spirits that can’t be put down by earthquakes or fire or the tragic closing of Roland’s bagels. San Francisco embraces people who know exactly who they are – and offers them stores full of shiny white platform go-go boots in a size eleven and apartments where purple stone lions peek out from Victorian facades. I love San Francisco’s vibrance – technology and history set off by Hunky Jesus competitions and massive pie fights, and all of it surrounded by unexpected flashes of blue water and red bridge. I love taking the cable cars and sitting next to Indian women in bejeweled glasses who squeal with glee as they spot the guy with three pets – the rat riding the cat riding the dog – ambling down Powell. I love walking down the Embarcadero at night and looping up to Chinatown where the red paper lanterns flutter in the breeze. I even love owning seventeen Old Navy sweatshirts because the schizophrenic weather patterns defeat me over and over again, even though I really should know better by now, and my options – yet again – are spend $12 or freeze.
I still cling to visions of a farmhouse in Tuscany or spending summers in Spain, but I can’t imagine leaving San Francisco for long. Because I love this city in a way I’ve loved nowhere else.
