Goodbye, North Beach

I was walking around Washington Square Park in North Beach this afternoon.

The sky is overcast, the air is cool and a little crisp and there are dry leaves on the damp ground. Though it is the dead middle of December, it feels like autumn, my favorite season.

I am in mourning because I am leaving North Beach to move to a flat in the Upper Haight and I will miss it's beauty. This walk is a bit ceremonial for me. I wanted a chance to drink her in as I start to say goodbye...

As I come to the top of the park where St. Peter and Paul's cathedral stands erect, keeping it's watchful, fatherly eye on the addicts, the vagrants and the children playing in the park (yes, they are all at play today), I come upon a series of trucks and trailers lining the side of the street. The trailers are labeled "Costume" and "Makeup" and I discover they are shooting a film here today.

My imagination starts to wander... what kind of story will be told of my neighborhood?

The large industrial trucks, with back panels raised, are filled with cameras, cords, and lights. The film crew, shaggy haired men dressed in black, are lined up and down the sidewalk, smoking cigarettes and talking excitedly to one another.

I pass by the last truck on the block and this one looks markedly different from the others. It is longer and black. I eagerly peek inside for answers.

It is packed with three vintage cars. Beautiful maroon, navy blue and emerald green 1940's era cars. "Of course," I think to myself, "a period film!" This is the perfect neighborhood for this story. I glance around me and notice the storefronts of North Beach that I pass everyday. But now I squint and try to look at them through the eyes of a storyteller...

I see the gilded window frames of the Goorin Bros. Hat shop, circa 1895, filled with textured, handmade fedoras and berets. (http://www.goorin.com/hat-shops/san-francisco-north-beach)

And next door to it, my very lovely Cafe Divine, which occupies the corner space of the Italianate Dante building. Elderly Italian patrons in tweed jackets and tourists in windbreakers sit outside at the roundish tables, sipping their red wine. (http://www.cafedivinesf.com/)

And then, of course, the elegant little Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe. (http://www.northbeachshop.com/pages/marios.html)

A young man in a green hoodie leaves one of the trucks with a tripod under his arm at his side, and starts to jog toward me. He slows down when he nears and points to the corners of his mouth as he turns to me, painting a smile onto his face. I catch his eye. He wants me to smile. I smile back, and, satisfied, he continues on.

My head hangs down in contemplation. A hint of my grin remains as I near my apartment. I wanted to turn back and tell him "thank you"...

Thank you for sharing your smile. Thank you for noticing my mourning, darkened eyes. Thank you for giving me a taste of your joy. I can tell that he is excited about the story about to be told here, just like I am.

Dear North Beach,

You have been a warm welcome, a captivating muse and a good friend, and now I am moving on.

Not "but." And.

It's a very important distinction.

Your truly,

Rachael

An Existentialist Surrenders

I remember being about 7 years old, dressed in a pink tutu with braids in my hair, and proudly declaring to my mother that I had made an important decision: I realized that I wanted to be a "princess" when I grew up. Then I humbly asked for my mother's advice on how should I go about to doing this.

My mother smiled, bent down to me and said I would have to marry a prince in order to be a princess, but the good news was that there is a prince my age named William who lives in England.

Well, I thought this was unfair. At the time, ew, boys still had cooties! But eventually, several Disney movies later, I fell in love with the dream of marrying a prince.

My memory of this story surfaced this past week when I read the announcement: http://abcnews.go.com/International/prince-william-kate-middleton-engagment/story?id=12158508

I've just hit my month four mark here in the city, and the finality of my decision to move to San Francisco is starting to sink in. This is my home. This is my city. This is my work. This is my calling.

This is my life.

I am here in San Francisco as a 28 year old, single woman who is a counselor for a church. Life doesn't look like what I had dreamt, the vision of an extravagant destiny that I had pictured as a little girl.

How many paths have I pondered and pursued throughout my life? Princess of England, elementary school teacher, wife, mother, Hollywood actress, cake baker, ballerina, Olympic gymnast, action movie star, novel writer, fashion designer, crime scene investigator, punk rocker, music video director to name only a few.

For creative beings like you and me, surrendering our dreams is hard to do. Not because life as it is isn't wonderful or beautiful, but because it is unexpected. It is sometimes disorienting. Life as it is can never look like the one that we have tried in vain for years to construct. How can it?

Does God's sovereign hand or do our own personal strivings determine the outcome of our lives? (Or, perhaps, you are more comfortable with the idea of Fate versus choice.) There is a reality that I can choose some things. There is also a reality that I cannot control most circumstances, I cannot control people's choices or the bus arriving on time or the rainclouds rolling in on the horizon or the color of my eyes.

So the life that I am living is both mine and not mine. Mine by choice and not mine by the choices that I cannot make, those which are not under my jurisdiction.

I must surrender my own creation to the greater Creator.

I used to tell people that I wish I could meet with God at Starbucks once a week to review his upcoming plans for my life. Not so much in order to micromanage his decisions, but to be a part of the brainstorming process. Oh, yeah. And to have veto power.

Will life be beautiful or tragic?

I have a choice to either sit here on my bed, dwelling on my own dream, my own art, my own creation, the idyllic world that exists in my head.

Or, I can choose to surrender, turn my head to the left and drink in the gorgeous creation that is right outside of my three paneled window overlooking a sunny North Beach street bustling with tourists and Italians. The bells of St. Peter and Paul's church have just chimed 4 o'clock and now I will hop in the shower, put on some red lipstick and hurry off to meet a group of new friends at a cafe in the Mission for dinner and cocktails.

Where, o where will the tale of life in San Francisco lead?...

The Deity of the Database

There are so many options here in this city.

Ideally, this is a good thing. Right?

Restaurant options, relationship options, transportation options, entertainment options, communication options...

There are entire databases online built for researching and rating the "best" services that this city has to offer. Where should you eat Thai food in Noe Valley? Well, duh. You should "yelp" it and let the collective consciousness of the city tell you exactly where to go.

Are you vegetarian... vegan... gluten free... dairy free... organic... macrobiotic... free range... raw... no carb... or, hey, do you just eat any food they put in front of you?

Tell us. Who "are" you?

This is a city crawling with opinionated people. Smart people. Creative people. Good looking people. People who work passionately, go skiing in Tahoe on the weekends, buy organic clothing, drive electric cars, drink good wine and eat at only the best restaurants. Life is lived with much deliberation and intentionality in the midst of the chaos of the endless options available.

I just moved to this city from a community where there is one good happy hour in town. You show up there on Friday night and everyone you know is already drinking.

By contrast, in this city, most of the time I've just feel lost, confused and disconnected.

"Who am I?"

Uh oh. I feel an unnecessary identity crisis coming on...

I don't KNOW what I want!

I am so overwhelmed with opportunities that I have found myself defaulting to a passive, "go wherever the wind may take me" mentality. Actually, I vacillate between that and the resignation of hiding in my apartment watching instant streaming movies online. Even there, in the comfort of my own bedroom, I am drowned in a sea of choices. But don't worry. The databases have solved this dilemma for me. My preferences are instantly predicted and my identity is magically generated by my book vendor, music player, search engine, clothing distributor and social networking site. A list of "movies you will love" or "books we recommend" pops up for me every time I visit.

Seriously! Just check out the sidebar next time you are looking at your ex's wedding photos on your social networking site:

"Fan of Kill Bill, Vol. 1? Well, check out our newest blockbuster titled..."
"Is art your passion? Register now for photography classes at your local..."
"Are you a Tori Amos fan? Check out debut artist..."

Call me archaic. Call me foolish even. But the rebel within me says "no."

I don't want a database to tell me who I am or to turn me into who I will become.

To be continued.

Life Lessons Learned at the DMV

My Florida driver's license expired this past Sunday on my 28th birthday...

Unfortunately, this happens to be the sort of "expiration" that they won't let you simply pay money for and renew online. Nope. You have to go down to the DMV, in person, so that they can verify that you still know what a stop sign looks like.

Now that I live in California, I had to hunt down and trek over to the local DMV in San Francisco. You know, the one over on Fell Street and Broderick... yeah, the ONLY one in the entire city. (Seriously. People?) Of course, I have to admit that I got the renewal notification in the mail months ago when I was still living in FL and I waited until the very, very last minute to take care of it. And this past Thursday was the last day the DMV was open before my license's expiration...

So, I show up first thing on Thursday at 10 a.m.

(I realize that 10 a.m. is not technically "first thing" and I probably should have gotten there earlier being that I was missing work to take care of this, but, um, you know, I had to meet a client that morning and then I got some yogurt for breakfast from my new favorite place called Fraiche which just happened to be on the way (couldn't resist!) and then, well, I eventually got there.)

I understand now that I was unconsciously procrastinating and trying to put off the inevitable pain.

It ended up being one of the strangest experiences I have had in this city yet... but there are 5 important life lessons that day I have learned that I will share here with you.

Life Lessons Learned at the DMV

1. Barney the dinosaur lied. You are not special. Nobody is. No matter what your age, class, ethnicity, height, weight, handicap, religion, intelligence level, style of dress, attitude, sense of urgency, etc., YOU will have to go through the same process as everyone else. The homeless man, the hipster with his ipad, the vegan couple with dredlocks and the mother of the two year old she couldn't leave at home are all together, crammed into a bank of plastic chairs, waiting for their numbers to be called. We are all equal in the eyes of the DMV in that we are all cattle. We are simply a number. (In my case, G168). Do not take this as an insult. No. This is just a way of life. Every day, the DMV has to get hundreds of city dwellers through this process. The only way to be impressive is to smile and act happy to have just waited 138 minutes for your number to be called. Even then, they won't do you any real favors... maybe they just won't scowl at you quite as much. And they might even tell you to have a happy birthday.

2. Mr. Gates is a failure. Gates' stated that his dream was to get a P.C. "on every desk and in every home." For a city with such advanced technology (ref. "hipster with ipad" in bullet point 1), this technology has not yet penetrated the fortified, inner realm of the DMV. There is literally a crawling hub of dot commers and silicon valley-ians right here in the city. Dude, there are public toilets that clean themselves!! There are electronic signs at the bus stops that tell you how far away the next two buses in the queue are. Yet. Yet. When you renew your license at the DMV, you take traffic law test on paper with a number two pencil and stand in line for an hour so that the lady can hold up her score card next to your 30 question, two sided test and grade it BY HAND. Yes, folks. They grade all of the tests by hand. Yes. By hand.

3. The red headed lady at the counter is not your mother. The lady at the front counter of the DMV does not like you. She doesn't like anybody. She yells all day long and never gets tired. She will yell at you even if you fill out your form correctly, avoid eye contact and stand patiently in line. She will yell at you because she likes it. She will yell at you because she can. There is obviously something wrong with you and she is not trying to act like your mother.

4. The true definition of a "good" book... If I could have gone back and done this whole day over, the one thing I would have done differently was bring a book. No. Sorry. I did bring a book. I would have brought a GOOD book. One that could keep my attention for more than 5 minutes at a time. Trust me on this one. Though you may be tempted to bring a book that will look impressive to others or a book that you "need to read" for work, don't do this. Bring one that you will enjoy. No, no. Don't bring "Anna Karenina" or "How to Heal When Ministry Hurts". Instead, indulge yourself and bring that old, tattered copy of Twilight, The Devil Wears Prada or Vogue. (Ok, that last one is not really a book but it counts!) The true test of a good book is whether you will still want to keep reading it at minute 137 of your wait.

5. Birthdays can expire. So this is the sad part of my story. At the end of the whole three and a half hour ordeal, they say you owe them $34 and that it will take 4-6 weeks to mail your new driver's license to you. Yesterday I went to Trader Joe's and purchased a bottle of "Two Buck Chuck" Savignon Blanc. The cashier asked to see my I.D. so I handed her the only one I had, my FL driver's license. She looked at it and said, "That's expired. I can't take it." Ummmm... well, driver's licenses expire but birthdays can't expire, right? Wrong. "I can't accept that as a valid form of I.D." Well. Lesson learned. Apparently birthdays do expire.

And perhaps this is the secret to why wisdom comes with age. The older you get, the more life lessons, like these, you have to learn at the DMV.

A Day in the Life... Three Odd Tales

Intuition

Early in the morning, I was walking to a bus stop in the Inner Sunset... not my usual neighborhood but I was staying in the area for 4 days watching my coworker J's dog, Buddy. As I am strolling down 6th avenue, a guy about my age comes out of his apartment, cuts right in front of me and walks hurriedly ahead. I am a bit put off, thinking this guy is a little rude. (And I have not had my coffee yet.) He arrives a couple seconds before I do to the same bus stop and stands directly underneath the street light on the side of the road. I was casually observing this guy, sizing him up. He seems antsy, nervous, wound up. His hands were in his pockets and he kept on looking down the street for sight of the bus. He is shifting his feet, bouncing up and down. He seems a little cold. He only has a tee shirt on and the weather is probably in the mid 50's. After about two minutes of this fidgety dance, all of a sudden he stops, gasps, and takes a giant step backwards. Just then a HUGE bird dropping splats on the ground right where he had been standing. We look up and see that there is a large black raven perched on the lamp post above. He looks at me, lit up and smiling. "Did you just see that?" I laugh and tell him, "You are a very lucky man." He said that he just "had a hunch." Then he announces loudly to me and to the world, "Today is going to be a good day." At that exact moment, the bus pulls up, he stands aside and asks whether I am getting on. I say no that I am waiting for the 43. He smiles, waves and hops on the bus. He rides away.



Calculator Race

Last week, it was one of those dull, slow days in the office. Almost nobody is around. My office mate J is on vacation. My boss is out. I decide to check again for any new emails. Then I move on to reading updates on my facebook home page. No new updates. No notifications. No messages. I move on to obscure, random articles on CNN.com, the couple ones remaining that I have not yet read. Just then, my coworker B stumbles through the doorway, almost Kramer like, and asks with a wild, determined expression in his eye, "Do you want to have a calculator race?" More of a statement than a question. He immediately picks up my calculator off my desk, places it in my hand and tells me to type in 1 plus 1. Ok. (I am not getting it.) He tells me to hit the equal sign repeatedly. In my curiosity, I comply. "Ok, stop" he says. He asks me what number I am at and the screen says 25. "25." I am sitting there, looking at him, eyebrows raised, totally confused. I still have no idea what is going on. He tells me, "Now, wait until I say go." He lowers his head down onto his folded hands on my desk, deep in concentrated thought. After a subtle beat, he dramatically peers up at me and says "Go!" I begin pressing the equal sign and he starts rapidly sputtering the numbers, out loud, in sequence up from 25! No freaking way, I think to myself. Game on! I get into it. I am pressing pressing pressing, going going going, and he is rattling the numbers off so fast I realize he actually could beat me. =,=,=,=,=,=,=,=... (I am laughing out loud, completely bewildered at this point.) He reaches one hundred in a matter of seconds and yells "Stop! What is it?" I glance at my calculator screen and I slowly turn it around to show him... 129! Win.



The Screecher

Yesterday I was riding on the number 1 bus home from work. The bus was somewhat crowded when I got on. I was able to snatch a seat halfway down the aisle, so I laid back against the chair and relaxed. My moment of zen is interrupted by an unusual screeching, giggling noise coming from the other end of the bus. I look over curiously. There is a family of four sitting in the back row of bucket seats, obviously from out of town being that they had cameras around their necks and a map in their hands. With them was a small, blond, 8 year old girl who was gazing out the window at the city scenes passing us by. Yep. She was the screecher. The bus started to climb Russian Hill, and she screams "Wow, look, this hill is sooooo steep!" Then the bus's PA system announces we are arriving at the "Mason" stop and she screams, "We are at Mason now!" Later when the bus reached the top of the hill and started it's descent, she screamed "We're going down... wheeeeee!" And then we finally come (not soon enough) to my stop at the bottom of the hill on Stockton in the heart of Chinatown. As I am leaving the bus through the back door, I hear her scream "I see Chinese people!"

I laugh out loud to myself all the way home.

You Better Bring Your Own Sun

"Oh! could we make our doubts remove,
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And see the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes."

We listened to this hymn in church this morning and a tremor of sorrow and recognition struck me.

Unbeclouded.

I long to see my own city with unbeclouded eyes.

I have been struggling with the fogginess of San Francisco in my first few summer weeks. The eerie cloudedness seems to enhance the gloomy thoughts residing inside of me... the remaining grief from my cross country move which I have been trying desperately at various times to avoid, endure or sidestep. In some moments, the heaviness of the grief feels like too much. (And this smothering fog doesn't help.)

My roommate K. and I were taking a driving tour of the city last week and she commented on the strangeness of San Francisco compared to the other fair weathered Californian metropolises which surround us. She explained that if you just drive an hour north, south, west or heck, just right over the Golden Gate: the curtain of fog opens up and, behold, the sun is there.

The sun still exists!

(Okay, yes, I apologize. The melodrama is to enhance the effect.)

But I started thinking about it and I fell in love with the notion that the sun is as big and as bright and as beautiful as ever, as it has always been. Only that momentarily it's brilliance and it's heat is covered and overshadowed from where I am currently standing, from my physical perspective.

The Floridians and the Bahamians in this same moment are contentedly soaking up their supple rays, as happily as ever.

There is something about the image, the memory of the sun still shining brightly that helped melt away some of the cloudedness of my dark thoughts.

And then I allowed myself to start looking at the city in a different way. Walking home after church today I realized that the hills and the houses and the white trimming and the fog are all pieces of a whole. The gloomy cloudedness is part of this city's beauty. It is part of the same portrait. Just then and only then did I notice the other elements standing out, contrasted against the darkness... the whimsy of pastel houses, the tingling coolness of the wind and the huge, gorgeous blue bay... I get a scenic, breathtaking glimpse as I reach the top of a peak in Nob Hill.

What else would I see if I were to glance upon this city with unbeclouded eyes?...

Perhaps an unbeclouded vision does not require sun.

Perhaps it means remembering the sunshine and seeing the beauty that lives in spite of the darkness.

The Story of My New Bed

So I have been in San Francisco exactly one week today. Already I feel quite at home. One big thing that I have been lacking however is a bed...

My lovely roommate C. had surprised me when I arrived at the house last week with an air mattress already blown up, laying in the middle of my bedroom floor, adorned with clean ivory sheets. I have to admit that it was quite a nice welcome. After the 6 hour flight, lugging my two 50 lb. suitcases around, I was ready to collapse on it.

Although her mattress generosity was appreciated with my wide open arms, I put it as number one (well, maybe number two...three, whatever) on my list of "things to do" this weekend: buy a proper bed for myself. After all, it seems like a very mature and grown up thing to do. I have to admit (confessions!) that I slept on an air mattress for over a year in NYC until my parents came to visit. They were horrified and dismayed at my living conditions as a 23 year old and insisted on purchasing a bed for me. This time around, I was resolved to get a bed BEFORE my parents came to visit. Today, the fates smiled on me.

So, here we go...

I spent about 3 hours walking around Union Square this morning, searching for warmer clothes (that was the actual number one on my list) and I decided to get some "exercise" by walking home 2 miles up and down a very large hill, hauling with me a Burlington Coat Factory shopping bag filled with warmer purchases.

I get to my street and I turn right to walk down to my house and I notice there is a homeless man, about 60 years old, muttering to himself and kicking a pink mattress that is laid out against the side of my neighbor's house. The mattress was wrapped in clear plastic and there was a sign on it that said "New" which was crossed out, and then underneath "Free." The old homeless man looks me straight in the eye, points to the mattress and says "It's free if you want it" and then walks off. (Note: The mattress was left out by the neighbor, not the homeless man.)

"Huh?" I think to myself.

I look a little more closely at the mattress, expecting to see dark reddish brown stains, mice droppings, bugs... or possibly worse. But it looks like it is in perfectly great condition.

"Huh!" I think to myself again. I grab the edge of the mattress and I try to lift it. It slips out of my hands immediately and I realize that it is actually incredibly heavy. I pathetically try sliding it up the sidewalk instead, my house being only about 20 feet away. I get closer and closer, inch by inch, and then it dawns on me that once I actually get it to my house, I will need to get it up to the third floor somehow.

"Huh" again (this time with a air of discouragement). I lean the mattress against my neighbor's house and remember that no one is home and that both of my roommates are out of town.

And right then this guy walks up and says "Want help?"

I look at him and I freeze.

"Yes I want help!", is what I really want to say but then the part of my brain that tries to make good, safe, rational decisions kicks in. I check out this guy, this stranger... late twenties, all black clothing, fedora hat, chain hanging out of his pocket, reeking of marijuana... and I conclude that he seems like a bit of a risk.

But, you know what, I really want this bed. And from what Scott McKenzie tells me, San Francisco is full of "gentle" people. I say a little prayer and I go for it...

"Sure!" I said, trying to muster up some enthusiasm to cover my doubt.

He goes to the front of the mattress, picks it up, turns his head toward me and says, "You get the back." A little shocked by his proactiveness, I fall right into line, picking up the tail end behind him.

When we get to my house, I point to it and nervously say, "This is me... umm, are you up for a couple flight of stairs?" He looks at me, smiles and says, "Yep. Let's do it."

So he and I carry this big pink mattress up about two flights of stairs and around the 180 degree curve in the stairwell, him having to almost literally bend the mattress in half to fit it around. We get it to the top, he leans it against the side of the hallway, shakes my hand and says, "I'm Jared, nice to meet you." Completely out of breath at this point, I take his hand and say "Thankssss, (gasp on the inhale) I... am Rachael." He says "Glad I could help, hope to see you around the neighborhood again" and marches right out the door with a smile and a wave before I can even catch my breath again.

"Huh." I think to myself, chest heaving, staring at the pink mattress that is now safely on the third floor of my house. I smile and almost laugh out loud to myself, except that I am still gasping for air.

Thanks for the bed, San Francisco.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB2tYYYlwMc

Day 1 and the Number 1 Bus, A Slideshow

(Lights out, start projector)...



6:45am

Blueberry Cliff Bar

Philippians

Number 1 Bus

Venti Starbucks

Mac Laptop

Empty Chair Tour

"Blow Heater"

Salt & Pepper Pop Chips

Handshakes

Misspelled Name

Broken Internet

Employee Handbook

Internet Fixed!

Facebook

Training

PB&J

Staff Meeting

Laughing

A Couple Emails

Stale Coffee With Cream

Neuropathways

Yogurt Run

More Laughing

Yammer

Ghandi

Goodbyes

Number 1 Bus

Chat With Dad

Trader Joe's

Sore Feet

Roommate Gelato Run

Big Screen Bachelorette

10:00pm

...(Hit the lights)


It was a good/bittersweet/caffeinated first day. Missing my sunshine friends yet looking forward to more days like this to come.

Packing and Goodbyes

12 days until I board my plane to fly to San Francisco.

Right now I am going through the process of packing and saying goodbyes to all of my Orlando friends. Mom bought me a HUGE blue suitcase from Ross for my trip. We measured it to make sure it fits the airline's proper luggage dimensions so that I don't have to pay the oversize fees.

I get home with my new big suitcase and then it hits me, I have to fit my whole life into two 50 lb. bags and one carry on...

I have already filled two garbage bags full of clothes from my closet for goodwill and I have not even got to my dresser yet. This is the second or third time in my life that I have had to purge all of my belongings to start over. Each time I get less and less attached to my material things which is probably a good thing.

But as I go through my closet, memories start flooding my mind...

I pick up the yellow dress from my last Easter brunch in NYC at my favorite Hell's Kitchen French eatery, then the floral orange sundress from the mission trip to Rwanda when we visited the genocide memorial, and finally the satin purple cocktail dress from the Bahamian cruise with classmates when we ate escargot and discoed the night away on a swaying dance floor.

These are not clothes, they are memories. They are memoirs, they are mementos of my life, physical representations of what happened and of where I have been. Photographs. Snapshots. Pieces of my past.

And I am tossing them ALL away so that I can fit myself, my life, into two 50 lb. bags and one carry on.

Call me sentimental but this is a lot harder than I expected.

12 more days.

It seems impossible to say all of my goodbyes in only 12 more days.