Last weekend in San Francisco.
It's a rainy Saturday night in San Francisco. My daughter's birthday is coming up on January 21st. She and I have not been in touch for a long time; if any blame is assigned, the fault is all mine. There's a creative shop down the street that has nice cards. I put on my Sony neckband speakers, dialed up a rainy night blues playlist, bundled up and grabbed my umbrella.
The streets & sidewalks were puddled and shiny as I made my way down Valencia Street. The shop was open, but I didn't see anything I liked. I decided to bus & walk down to a worker-owned co-op store that also has creative cards.
Walking down several blocks from the bus stop, I passed by people setting up their tents and shelters beneath the underpass. There are more people than homes in The City, and housing costs are high. Yes, there's a homeless population here. There but for the grace of God go I.
I found a card at the Rainbow Co-op. I decided to take the bus up to Market Street, and ride the streetcar down to the Ferry Buildilng and the Bay Waterfront.
We're lucky to have a group here that refurbishes vintage streetcars and feeds them into the municipal transportation system. As I rode through the rain in my empty retro classic streetcar, the wipers slowly beating metronome time on the windshield, the lights blurred and I could imagine myself on a trip in 1953 San Francisco, the same street and the same rain and the same blues soundtrack. I said a silent thanks to the people who put the car into service for me.
It was raining harder when I got off the streetcar. I put up my umbrella and made my way to a pier that sticks out into the Bay waters. Few people were about; I had the pier all to myself. The San Francisco Bay Bridge crossed the bay before me, anchoring into Treasure Island, and then across to Oakland. Foghorns cried out into the night, and I heard a signal as a ferryboat left its berth and set off across the dark bay. As it chugged off into the distance, I watched another ferry, nearly empty, navigate under the Bay Bridge and berth into its dock.
I walked back off the pier, the City lights and buildings lighting up the night before me. I decided to traverse the waterfront promenade and explore a wooden pier farther down the bayfront. My path was mostly deserted, but I passed a large restaurant all lit up and warm, filled with a chattering crowd having some event. The raindrops tapped a beat on my umbrella as I walked past, my blues theme accompanying the squish squish of my feet through the puddles.
I walked out onto the wooden pier; the planks worn and bumpy and three-dimensional from the salt weather. I lingered alone, watching the Bay and the City and the rain from another perspective. And I decided it was time to go home.
I caught another streetcar up Market Street; caught a bus on Van Ness and took it to my Mission District neighborhood. I walked home through the puddles, hung up my soaking clothes, turned on my sauna to heat up and warm my cold bones, poured a shot of Crown Royal Black into a freezer shot glass, and sat down to write a letter to my daughter Dawn.
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