When I first went to San Francisco, I did not even know what I wanted to find out, and so I just stayed around awhile and made a few friends.
– Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem (1967)
I landed in San Francisco on Monday, February 4th. I stood on the curb and waited for my Uber as the rain fell and collected on the fibers of my sweater. It rained for the rest of that day and continued that way for most of the month. I didn’t really mind. It gave me an excuse to explore the city at my own pace. Slowly.
I’ve learned this about myself the past couple of years. I like to take my time getting to know new places. I tend to do most of my “research” before I arrive, but once I actually have two feet on the ground, try to keep my mind open, expectations steady, and, most importantly, surrender myself to life in front of me, rather than one I inevitably constructed in my head before arrival.
Despite the Craigslist apartment I had found not living up to my expectations (shocker) the area I had chosen felt like a simple, soft landing into the city. The Marina is pleasant and approachable. North/South running streets are wide and end to the north when they run into the bay. There’s a high-traffic walk and bike trail that runs along the water. Follow it west about a mile and a half and you end up practically underneath the Golden Gate Bridge, where on most days you can find people surfing on the swells that form around the point. The month I lived in The Marina I enjoyed jogging out to the point and stopping to watch these wet-suited mad-people catch waves underneath a bridge that disappeared into thick morning fog.
The dramatic coastline of California has always been a welcomed treat.
As a young girl my family had road tripped from Seattle, WA all the way to Carmel, CA. I discovered a lot that trip. Namely: Best Westerns were the crème de la crème of hospitality, playing concierge with a sibling in a city you know nothing about trumped all other games, cold stone creamery was gift from the Gods, being in the backseat through the winding roads of the Redwood forest was, and probably still is, not a good idea for my motion sickness, and finally, finding a good walking stick that rivals your own height was essential.
I have a faint memory of stepping out of the car on a cliffside in Carmel with a large beach below us. I was happy.
Growing up on a barrier island on the South Coast of Georgia, with the soft backdrop of endless marsh grass and brackish water creeks, makes the dramatic west coast of the US feel exciting and spectacular. The jagged, dramatic coast and rocky beaches of California had surprised me when I was younger, and have continued to each time I return.
Years later, with two friends from college, I road-tripped from Newport Beach up to San Francisco, covering the state’s coastline to the south that my family had stopped short of so many years before. The whole way north, cliffs reminded me of the Cornish Coast of England where my four siblings and I spent a chunk of each summer during our childhood.
Some four hours north of Newport Beach, my college friends and I had stopped for the night in Morro Bay. We stayed in a low-lying inn with a view towards the rocky coastline and walked through the quiet town to get pizza for dinner. Maybe it was the lack of people, the salty air, or the way the buildings were sort of crumbling with the coastline. Whatever it was, it felt like the little town of Yamba, Australia to me more than it felt like Morro Bay, California.
I find myself thinking about Australia a lot since I’ve been in San Francisco. Golden Gate Park (which is about 200 acres bigger than Central Park) consistently reminds me of Hyde Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. Both green spaces have incredibly diverse landscapes, and can go from jungle-like and wild, to crisp and manicured within the span of a couple hundred feet. Golden Gate Park is overall a better park, in my opinion, but they both provide this sense of true escape from the city that one inevitably needs on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis. Them both being coastal cities set within a bay helps too. The Golden Gate Bridge is similar to the Sydney Harbor Bridge in that it sort of anchors you amongst it all, poking itself out from the tops of buildings, reminding you to lift your gaze every once in a while. And when the sun sets on a clear day; yellow and intrusive, casting a warm, sepia tint over the whole city, I can’t help but think of those raging sunsets down under — impossibly romantic for how often they occur.
One of my favorite parts of experiencing a new place is the way your mind bends towards familiarity. I think about this a lot. Your body is a walking memory box, accruing information throughout your life, often without any conscious choice. One moment you have wide-eyed wonder - newness surrounds you. And the next, you’re double-taking a smell -*deep inhale*- breathing in as much of it into your body as possible: searching…asking…demanding…Where have I smelt this before?
I find incredible joy happening-upon these threads of similarity that help keep the vastness of earth making sense.
After my stint in the Marina for February, I moved two miles south to a higher vantage point to experience March.
Golden Gate Park became my new running route and the famous ‘Painted Ladies’ houses, which are so beloved from their cameo in the Full House intro, were steps from my building. Here, on the hilltop of the Haight, is where I felt like I really started to ‘get’ San Francisco.
I walked eight minutes to Haight Street and took the 6 Bus 27 minutes into the tall buildings for work most days. The bus went through the infamous Tenderloin and Civic Center and I was always glad I didn’t have to get off there. I drank three coffees a day and usually took the same bus home.
Unlike the Marina, Haight-Ashbury and the immediate surrounding radius feel distinctly San Francisco. The area lacks the polished mansions of Pacific Heights or the picture-perfect view of the Bay, but that’s what made me like it so much. It didn’t feel like I was living in a postcard of San Francisco, I was in the guts, and I liked that about it.
My shins got sore from my legs bracing the downhills and I think my ass grew from the uphills, too. I found the Lower Haight a perfect area for jackpot coffeeshops. Ones you could pop into for a fast cappuccino before an early morning meeting or the perch-all-day kind, where no one asks any questions or bats an eye if you sit there until sundown.
I discussed Duboce Park and the Lower Haight briefly in one of my March posts, but I have an anecdote to add to help give you an idea of the type of glorious shit I witnessed in the area. One sunny afternoon, I stepped off the 6 bus and began what I can most accurately describe as my plod up the hill towards Alamo Square and my apartment building. As I neared the first cross-street that would provide some respite, the rhythm of bike pedals pulled my gaze to the right. Time slowed ever so slightly — just enough for me to devour the moment — passing in front of me, a little girl perched on the back of her mother’s bike, singing over a speaker I couldn’t see, to Lover by Taylor Swift. Her hair was curly, just like her mom’s, pouring out of her bike helmet and suspended ever so slightly in the wind created by her chauffeur.
Whoosh…
…and she was gone…and I was left smiling before I had any time to think. I haven’t forgotten about her.
The only down side of being in the Haight was realizing I don’t really like cats all that much - especially long-haired ones (thank you to my FB Marketplace sublet for this) - and I would need to spend 3k to live in a decent spot on my own. Yes, San Francisco is expensive, we know this. I secretly wish we would all stop talking about how expensive cities are.
As any city-dweller knows, one of the ironic things that allows you to really enjoy all the concrete, is the ability to get out of it. One wildly redeeming quality about the cost of living in San Francisco is how simple it is to leave. One morning my first couple of weeks, a friend and I headed out for a hike in the Marin Headlands. Maybe it was the word “headlands” but I had an idea it would be quite an ordeal to execute. Turned out it wasn’t. We drove along the edge of the Presidio, north across the Golden Gate Bridge, continued past the exit to Sausalito and were at the trailhead in less than 15 minutes. The drive itself was delightful, but there was more to see.
We walked through the lush valley, dodging muddy patches still drying-out from heavy rain the previous week. As we approached the coast, a stream of runoff water revealed itself from the grassland, cut sharply into the wet sand of the beach, and flowed with some speed out to sea. It was too strong (and too cold) to go in, but the rushing water and kids playing chicken with it made me wonder what I looked like as a child playing knee-deep in streams, building dams, and trying to keep up with my older siblings.
I remember after those long days outside I would lie in the twin bed next to my sister, jet-lagged and awake although my body ached for rest. When silence eventually fell over us, the phantom sensation of hard weathered rocks remained under my feet, taking me back to the bottom of the stream: carefully executed movements - hard work for my young legs - trying to anchor myself amongst the chaos, trusting my feet to find a stable place to rest.
When’s the last time that happened to any of you? Should we make it a collective goal for the summer? Just once, we’ll go to sleep with our bodies reminding us of the day that has passed - the feeling of the earth on our bare feet as we doze off with blissful exhaustion.
Promise you’ll tell me if you do? I’ll be sure to tell all of you.
Where I had found a sense of understanding in the Haight, complexity started to creep in as I tried to settle into my ultra-modern apartment in the Mission for my last month in SF. It was the type of complexity that naturally accompanies sticking around for a while and making a few friends. I couldn’t help but wonder: was I some sort of weird, watered-down, 2024 reincarnation of Joan Didion’s disillusioned young people in Slouching Towards Bethlehem?
My short time there (before my dreaded tooth saga began) reminded me that you can never really wrap your arms around a place no matter how long you stay. There suddenly felt like too many variables (my own self included) to make any judgements, form any opinions, or even try to capture any relatable truth from my experience. And any I managed to, felt shallow…unsubstantiated…futile… and I’m not even sure why. Maybe I felt like a fraud? Maybe I still do?
In short, my last month in the San Francisco, life started to catch up with me. I was tired of scouring Facebook Marketplace to find a new place to live each month and I kept wanting to buy unnecessary trinkets for an apartment I didn’t have. I felt frustrated that I kept acquiring stuff: bed sheets, pillow cases, towels, a massive container of tide pods I would never see the bottom of, a big bottle of olive oil… and although I bought this stuff to make my life better in the short term, they ended up bringing unwanted stress into my life. What was I going to do with all of it when I left?
I was also gearing up to leave old and new friends that had embraced me on my arrival to the city. It was precious time I would never get back. It had come and gone quickly, even though I had tried my hardest to savor the moments together. It all just felt sort of sad. And although I had chosen it, I couldn’t help but feel bad for myself. Maybe it goes without saying, but my time in the Mission was quickly eclipsed by my obsession with what the fuck I was doing with myself. I had nowhere else to be, yet could leave whenever I wanted. It was magical yet horrifying all at the same time.
Those threads of familiarity I have unexpectedly found and cherished as I discover new parts of the world — smells I’ve smelt before or sunsets reminiscent of elsewhere — are ingrained as a part of me. But picking up and leaving had become something familiar, too. This time though, I wish I didn’t know what it felt like.
Forever chasing the feeling of a rocking boat or rocks on my feet while trying to fall asleep
👏👏👏