Fog Warning (An Introduction)

I was made in San Francisco.

My parents had a tiny apartment in Twin Peaks where the bathroom doorframe wasn't quite wide enough to accomodate mom's pregnant belly. They defected to a larger space in Marin County during my second trimester in the womb but since mom kept her old doctor in the city, I got to be born here. I like to imagine my dad nervously driving her to the hospital to give birth, counting the time between contractions between the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge and being congratulated by the toll taker.

I spent a lot of time in the city growing up, especially whenever dad was running late to a videography job and needed a willing passenger to tag along for access to the carpool lane. I always happily accepted the responsibility. I enjoyed the views from the bridge to downtown: sailboats in the bay, older Chinese men and women doing Tai Chi in Washington Square, and the tall buildings in the Financial District. At three or four years old, I wasn't sure what made the city so special; I just knew it was special. I still kind of feel that way, actually. I could list a thousand reasons why this is a great town but I feel San Francisco is somehow greater than just the sum of its parts.

As I got older, I was able to take the ferry into town with friends or on my own. I'd go shopping or window shopping or do not much at all. I just wanted to be there, and I wanted to stay. The ferry rides back were consistently depressing. I hated how the city skyline got smaller and smaller by the time the boat pulled into Larkspur. The prisoners at nearby San Quentin never did anything to soften the blow.

I ventured down south for college and took a brief exodus after graduation to toil for the wine industry in Napa where the hills are covered in vines, not Victorians. It was beautiful but it wasn't San Francisco. The city had been in the back of my head my entire life. Once I decided I could trade wineries for wine bars, I moved. I found a new job and a room in a house on Russian Hill with strangers who became friends. I have my favorite cafes, parks, even streets (the first few blocks of Noe in the Duboce Triangle are just beautiful). I've never felt so happy to call someplace "home." I love San Francisco unconditionally. I know this because I can't stay mad at Muni for very long.

I still take the ferry up to Larkspur now and then to visit family, but these days I get to ride it back. Instead of getting smaller, the skyline becomes grand as we pull into the port and I get to head home.

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This was just a little something I wrote for a wonderful project, i live here: SF which is the artistic brainchild of local photographer Julie Michelle. I've got my photo shoot tomorrow so a picture and the story should come up eventually. I'll post a link when that happens, but in the meantime: run, don't walk. Or since we're online, click really, really fast and check out all the stories Julie has collected so far.
Writing this made me happy so I'm going to do it more often.