san francisco never left
i know, i know
a place feels strange until it doesn’t. on the third night of staying in a hotel, the lighting starts to feel familiar. on the first week of living in the new apartment, you learn to dance around the wobbly parts of floor during your partner’s zoom meetings. the backseat of has the new car smell until its scent only reminds you of old trips around the neighborhood.
it’s hard to shake off a place the moment it means something to you, and it’s not too hard for importance to happen in the first place.
it’s why san francisco, despite all the transience and frustration its been known to be associated with, feels like it never left for me. san francisco is back, it never left and it is long dead. they’re all takes, none particularly good, yet all insinuating a degrees of self-importance that you, of all people, know when a city’s heart is pulsing in a way that should count.
imagine!
i know, i know, part of the debate is to not take the debate seriously, and part of the meme is to ignore it altogether. and if that’s your take, no offense, go away. these essays are for the earnest.
i was one of those people who had one foot out of san francisco during the pandemic. i spent the first six months of covid-19 here, smack in the heart of a new relationship that combined the honeymoon stage with quarantine. then, i packed up everything except for my at-home clothes, threw it in storage and moved in new jersey for a year.
the storage unit, comfortably in a random corner of south san francisco, took up space. the very existence of having my entire san francisco left packed up into a little box felt like insurance for a life i knew i wanted to get back to. at times, my closet was nice reminder that life existed beyond my childhood bedroom. if i was missing a crop top, or a christmas dress, i got to shrug and say that they were still there. just not here.
looking back, i think i was just doing the very human thing of processing change. i like to tuck away memories, only for me, that bring me to places i’ve lived. in new jersey, my puzzle piece closet reminded me of san francisco. in san francisco, there’s a certain turn you can make onto van ness street (of all places) that makes me feel like i’m in brookline, massachusetts. the wide streets and lines of beautiful homes. in brookline and boston, there was a tj maxx that made me feel like i was home in new jersey with my mom on a tuesday night.
we look for corners of new places to fold over and make them feel known, and no longer strange. and i think that’s why the san francisco is back or san francisco is dead debate bothers me so much (other than the fact that i actually take the god damn conversation seriously). it’s too simplistic to believe that cities can leave our lives, disappear from culture or bid away relevance. cities never leave our lives, they simply teach us lessons about cyclic moments, transient friendships and how to find home away from home.
for me, san francisco never left, the same way boston never left. a place feels strange until it doesn’t. and when its familiar, it stays that way. even if you get taller, smarter, farther.
best,
n
playing: getaway car by taylor swift
reading: everything sar has been writing these days on scatter brain
