trails, trials and travails

It’s been a long time since I last lived in San Francisco.  7.5 years.  That’s just enough time for me to forget things… but the knowledge returns — it’s there, just a little buried.  But really, I’m realizing that all I really know is where things are and how to get from point A to point B.  This city has changed enough that anything I once knew about it is basically useless… and just serves to make me feel like a dinosaur.  Businesses I once loved are gone or have changed ownership… knowing a great place to eat from 8 years ago isn’t worth much now.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the constant background noise.  That’s been the most jarring thing to get used to (other than the sheer volume of people here).   I’ve been waking up at dawn, and I know now why I do that.  It’s the only time when the clamor of the city dies down to a low simmer… when you can hear birds singing and don’t hear any crash and hum at all.  It’s peaceful.

I like the vibrancy of the city, it just wears on me at around 10pm when people are still in the streets being loud.  Overall, I really have enjoyed being back… it’s just that at least once a day I realize how overwhelmingly my life has changed in the past month.

People don’t really acknowledge your existence in a city.  Drivers are rude and self-centered.  If I had come here with no knowledge at all of SF, I’d probably be freaking out right about now.  But that I do know at least how it is laid out is a comfort.

But you can never really go back to what you once knew.  Many areas of the city are not as I once knew them.  I went to China Basin yesterday and was surprised at how built-up SOMA is now.  The entire South of Market area is less seedy and more trendy now.  But vacant — I guess the money dried up. Vacant but not seedy is a weird thing.

The Mission feels so much different than it did in 1985.  Back then, I lived at Shotwell/25th, and daily had run-ins with some homophobic twit.  Now?  Yea, it’s still the barrio and the Nortenos are still here… but they seem more subdued.  In fact, they seem like they are all posing for CD covers or something.  Most of the Mission now feels like a nice family neighborhood with a bunch of trendy hipsters thrown into it. 

The Castro, however, seems a sad parody of itself.  Most of the businesses or bars that I knew are now not there, even though others are still the same as they ever were (Orphan Andy’s, Buffalo Whole Foods, Cliff Hardware, the Castro Theatre). But with rents going at $3000/mo for a 2 bedroom (or higher), I think all the coolness got priced right out of there. I think we were paying less than $1000/mo for our 2 bedroom on 20th/Collingwood when I last lived there, in the 90s.

Noe Valley is a real disappointment.  That vacant building that used to be Real Foods is pathetic, my favorite laundromat is now a bank, and I guess Whole Paycheck is moving into the Bell Market.  The Mission feels more like home to me now — with a more down-to-earth comfortable air about it than Noe Valley now has. 

People are standoffish to strangers.  I very much get that city-vibe here, which I don’t recall from earlier (maybe I was too used to it).  I may as well be in Chicago or New York, except that I know my way around here. It’s a gorgeous city, too, and the views from anywhere still knock me out — although I sense that a lot of people here aren’t really awed by their environment. It just is what it is to them.  I’m starting to think I’d be better off just saying I’m from Colorado and not explaining that I used to live here (for 18 years!), because that merits at least some interest.  My landlord insisted that Gay Pride would be the most awesome thing I’d ever seen, for example… yea, I know, been there & done that.  I understand though, because people do come alive when they talk about how awesome their city is (and it is!).

Although when I say I’m from Colorado Springs, most people react as though I just came out of the Gates of Hell.  Sorry, California, you have no right to judge when y’all just voted down Prop 8 and your state is nearly bankrupt. Colorado has a lot of conservative right-wing evangelical Christians, but the whole of that state seems both more progressive and realistic and, well, friendly than California does right now. And even the most conservative people in the Springs still looked me in the eye on the streets, said ‘Hello’, and helped out if you needed it.  So, yea, I’m really not into this weird liberal judgement of everything not liberal. I’m not also not at all impressed by the “let the voters vote on everything” concept — that didn’t work out too well, huh? — nor am I impressed by how invasive government is here.  I am breaking the law by throwing away my coffee grounds?  I guess all that libertarianism in Colorado rubbed off on me.

Anyway, I’m glad to be back, but it is an adjustment.