Often, I forget that I live in San Francisco.
On a walk up in Bernal Heights today, at a park with trails that wind high above the City, a couple approached me and asked if I would take their picture. They were a cute couple, young and photogenic, and the picture turned out beautifully with his arm over her shoulder, hers around his waist, and the skyline painted behind them, a skyline that I barely notice anymore after my move to the City four years ago, almost to the day. Four years ago, the City was a foreign body that terrified and excited me, a network of incomprehensible streets and dark alleys, a hardness of urban life that I had yet to understand.
When we got to the back side of the hill, I saw fog rolling over Twin Peaks on its way downtown, smelled it, in fact, the moisture and the chill, and was reminded of when I moved into my little studio near Union Square three floors down from where Sam lived and knowing, without any arrogance or presumption, that we would someday fall in love, dance in a love affair that would last, if not lifelong, then four years at the very least. Somehow, but I knew that we would make it happen.
I often forget that I now live here, with everything that it has to offer mere footsteps from my house, in a city I used to find so intimidating, so imposing and aggressive, a city I now consider beautiful, frantic and serene in its wildness.
I saw it behind the couple as they smiled at me, waiting for me to count to three and take their picture. Often, I forget that this city is my home, that all I ever want is here within reach, if only I would reach.
Every so often, though, I am reminded.
Everything I want is there, too.
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