The morning sun peeks through the spaces between the waxy-green leaves of the magnolia tree outside my window. I’ve been reading poetry again – which means I’m feeling contemplative and observant. By 8:30, I’ve already had my breakfast of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. I can no longer decide how I would like to spend my day. The options are almost too plentiful. Go for a run? Drive out to a hike? Listen to a podcast or two? Read and write? Sit by the waterfront? Take a long walk through the city?
Yesterday, after going for a run in the morning, I walked to the vintage shops on Haight. Along the way, I found so many things for which to be grateful: the view of the skyline from Alamo Square and the view of the dome of city hall down Fulton St., the sight and smell of Angel’s Trumpets in Kimbell Park, two pigeons squabbling over and pecking at a slice of pizza, walking past a church and remembering my teenage self laughing at the term flying buttress. At the end of the day, I sat outside of a small brew pub soaking in the late afternoon sun and drinking a cleverly titled IPA, Janis Hoplin.
Because it was rainy, cool, and gray on Saturday, I spent the entire day inside. Because I spent the entire day inside, my gratitude journal for Saturday (observations of things that made me smile) was thin and consisted of things like the smell of cookies and cat videos on the internet. Contrasting Saturday with Sunday (yesterday), I’m trying to determine if that says something about where I find joy – or at the very least, when my senses are most engaged and when they are most deadened.
The newness of being here in San Francisco hasn’t worn off. I see the skyline and the water almost every day, and almost ever time that I do, it brings a smile to my face. I lived in Memphis, Tennessee for a year. I felt the same way about seeing and being near the Mississippi River – the soft joy of the beautiful and familiar. At the brew pub I was texting with some friends. As one complained about the real feel of -1 in Dallas (where he’s visiting), I boasted that I’m sitting outside in jeans and hoodie drinking a beer.
The ongoing news of the demise of this city and region is wildly overstated (and frustrating). I feel as safe here, if not safer, as I have in any other city. The views are spectacular. The people seem nice. It’s sunny far more often than not, and the temperatures are consistently in the 50s and 60s. Yet, that’s not the picture being portrayed in the national news (or even in some of the local news). Lately, The San Francisco Chronicle and other local outlets have been covering the abrupt departure of a TikTok food influencer who cut his visit to the Bay Area short saying the food wasn’t great and it’s not safe for visitors. For the life of me I can’t figure out why major and respectable news outlets like The Chronicle are covering influencers in the first place. Who gives a shit what a TikTok star has to say (other than their legions of equally uninformed followers)? Most of these people seem to be charlatans – much like a certain political figure who our national media can’t seem to quit. So much of what happens on social media is engineered to profit off of controversy, manufactured awe, and clicks… and our media (which also profits off of clicks) is all too happy to play along. Almost all of the people I talk to, people who live here, say they love it and wouldn’t live anywhere else.
With some Jazz playing in the background, the sun has inched higher in the sky. Through gauzy, gray clouds, it brightens and dims above the rooftops. The pulse of a new day. Like me, it seems as though it’s trying to decide how to spend the day and where it might uncover a few simple and unexpected bursts of joy.