San Francisco won’t change because of COVID-19, but you must.
How the fog provided me more clarity.
Blocks of perfectly planned squares house all of us in the Western districts of the internationally-famed 7x7 city. On the quiet nights, especially those during the quarantine, you could walk aimlessly and see the sky turn from an opaque bluish grey to a milky and sleepy charcoal that made the homes at dusk particularly extra gothic looking. Every ten to fifteen seconds you’d hear the electric engine of an Uber accelerating a block or two away, a dog bark, and even an unfortunate ambulance siren off in the distance; an eerie reminder of the severity of the current global pandemic.
All of these distant metropolitan sounds that one commonly overlooks puts you in a daze and makes you rethink your ongoing situation. The frightening thought of who you actually are and whether life will ever go back to any sort of normalness, let alone the grandiose wishes of drink filled summer concerts at Stern Grove or packed stadiums of parents and their kids creating lasting memories together while in the bleachers at Oracle Park. Then, just as you start weighing your options and partially abandoning your five-year plan, you are awakened by a brisk and howling wind coming off of the North Pacific.
Amongst the tranquil melody of the city’s very own open opera, you notice the homes being of extra particular idleness. The lights and TV sets that so happened to be on, all showcased what was utterly familiar. Flashes of the latest numbers of COVID cases on the news, a social justice debate on race, perhaps somebody from a small town attempting the ‘American Dream’ on a game show, or maybe a couple finding something to DoorDash and binge together but really scrolling through their Instagram’s to see who of their friends broke quarantine, or who was the next in being proposed to. These behaviors weren’t necessarily exclusive to people in this particular city, but in a town where the avenues were once a paradise for working-class families, was now painted over with the stroke of failed start-ups, Kombucha caps, and the inherent distinction between the have’s and have not’s. The price of living life comfortably on the couch away from the squalor of those living in the Tenderloin or under the overpasses in Silver Terrace on a chilly July evening was as problematic, contradictory, and as cyclical as a stray piece of plastic floating away in the foggy and nearby sea.
What one realizes strolling these streets at dusk after witnessing a city change so exorbitantly over the years, and what one may oddly appreciate about the city that is San Francisco, is that it very much shows you the randomness and undoubted ruthlessness that is present in the natural universe and of those man-made constructs such as hyper-capitalism. As you continue to walk, you notice the rows of homes that were built here have endured the evening and morning fog for over 60 years. And with those who have come and gone, whether that be natural causes or cultural shifts and migrations, the weather like life itself can be most unpredictable, wild, and at times harsh. Yet like the random two weeks of 90-degree heat that scorches San Francisco every October, once every so often, things tend to lineup perfectly. Just as your sanity is about to run completely thin, you witness something incredibly special. This remarkable beauty makes you come to amends with the insignificant noises and trivial issues that arise in our daily lives and reinstates what is most important.
It becomes even more evident as you continued to walk and see how the paint on many of the older homes has naturally chipped and fallen apart, but besides the constant salt and wind damage to the edifices you take notice when walking these streets, are the various forgotten pots and side gardens that inhibit these quiet suburban-like dwellings next to newly renovated and gentrified modern monstrosities. The utter randomness of survival for many of these plants shows the importance and brutality of how money, time, and the universe works. It’s deepest inner mechanisms that show no lack of remorse to anything that can’t escape time or more importantly, don’t have access to the resources necessary for survival.
Many pass these flowers every weekend on their way to the parks and rarely take notice, yet they give the most complete picture of the people who either depart their native San Francisco in search of a more economical livelihood or for those that end up staying after packing their bags and moving across the country. The many in search of becoming the next “techstar” or the various peoples running away from past lives to find solace as a newly initiated member of some unique off-brand community in this movable feast of a city.
These long term gardens typically aren’t the Marina bunch that have flocked from Los Angeles in recent years and buy $18 avocado toast, and they sure aren’t the programmers that think SoMa will equate to anything remotely relatable to New York City nightlife. For the most part, many of those people disperse after a couple of years of car break in’s, high rent prices, and 56 degree July evenings to more favorable and land plenty locales.
In reality, I can’t tell you who will succeed or who won’t, or who perhaps will end up editing the ambigious definition of what it means to be regarded as a “San Franciscan” in the future.
Hell, I’m just another local that wants to be back at a bar with “Thizzle Dance” playing in the background. Someone like the many who has witnessed the evolution of this city and has long term hopes to succeed in keeping my family’s name alive here. But take it from the gardens along the windy outer reaches of the city, those random flowers that have endured nature’s most trying elements of neglect, adversity, and that have been able to adapt and withstand the changing tides of time. There are always a couple of unique ones that continue to fight and evolve besides all odds.
In the end, being next to the sea tends to wash memories away and always allows those to come and go as they please. So maybe you’ll call it quits after enough of the $1,500 rent, or because you’re tired of seeing somebody shoot up heroin while you wait for the bus, but in reality, it’s up to you and solely you whether you want to be another paint chip that momentarily was present, or to somehow find your way through the eternal fog and find the rare and occasional soft California blue skies.
