MY SECRET LOVE

10 December 2001

I can't keep it a secret any more. I'm in love. Head over heels in love.

I spent the day yesterday with the object of my affections. I've really been in love for a very long time, but yesterday was one of the best.

I'm madly in love with San Francisco.

I suppose everybody loves the place where they were born, but if you're lucky enough to be born in a place that everyone wants to visit, you are, by nature, more proud of your home town.

And when that place looks as beautiful as my city by the bay...how can you help it--you keep falling in love over and over again.

I love all the faces of San Francisco. I love the fog so thick you can't see half a block ahead of you, and so cold that if you walk out onto the bridge, your goose bumps have goosebumps.

I love the wind that whistles through the tall buildings and, when I was a kid, would blow the smell of chocolate up from the Ghirardelli Chocolate factory, to be mingled with the roasting coffee beans down on the wharf to give a cloud of mocha to walk through at the start of your day.

I love the bay windows on the houses, jutting out over the sidewalks, and inside leaving wonderful little nooks and crannies to hide in on a cold day, curled up with a good book.

I love the hills that make tourists gasp and make me feel powerful because I know how to drive them. (I can even parallel park on a 45-degree slope in a stick shift car!...or used to be able to.)

I love the sound of the cable car bells, and even the long line of tourists waiting for a little ride, because I can remember when a ride was only 10 cents and you could usually get a seat. I remember using the cable car to commute when I was in high school.

I love the diversity of the people--the business men and women marching with determined stride through the financial district. The little Chinese women carrying their net bags to the shops on Stockton Street (not the tourist Chinatown of Grant Ave., but the Chinatown of its residents), filling them with strange looking foods. The homeless at the parking lot for the opera house and symphony hall, who smile and greet you and get to know you if you're a regular, and don't mind if you don't drop a quarter in their cup, but are very appreciative if you do.

I love the tourist traps, walking Pier 39, watching the seals off the deck, standing on Twin Peaks taking more photos than the tourists.

I love the bridges and Golden Gate Park. I love the waves pounding off the shore of ocean beach.

I love knowing where I am at all times and how to get where I want to go, even if it's by some esoteric route.

But more than anything else, I love San Francisco on a clear, sunny day. And yesterday was more clear than any day in recent memory.

We were going to...what else?...The Last Session (don't worry--it was the final performance, so you won't hear that name for awhile now). We had lunch at my mother's in Marin County and then headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. The sight of the city glistening in the sun was so beautiful it literally took my breath away. Not a cloud in the sky and not a speck of pollution. Just clear blue skies and clean air and that Oz-like mecca catching the rays of the sun as they bounced off the water of San Francisco Bay.

Tourists were out in full force, walking across the bridge and taking each other's picture with the city as a backdrop. I could smile smugly. "That's for civilians," I could think to myself. They'll go back to Peoria or Duluth and show Aunt Martha their pictures...but I get to stay here. I'll cross that bridge again in the fog, and in the rain, and I'll be here when the next crystal clear day comes.