I wanted to share a message I received from someone on Wednesday:
Hi Julie,
I’d like to preface by saying this email is going to be a bit scattered.
First things first, I recently relocated to the bay area of CA at the end of July. I moved from Kansas City, MO. I visited SF last summer when I took a month off work to take a road trip to the west coast. I fell in love with SF immediately, for all its inhabitants and energy and imperfections. I went back to KC but never stopped thinking about it.
I would sit at my desk at my office job and read your blog EVERY DAY. I was so into it. It’s honest and I ate it up. I read your site and looked at the people you photographed and soaked it all up. Your site and the people you photographed and the stories you told were the push I needed to finally make the move. I read your site on the plane ride into Oakland.
I want to help you in any way I can as you have helped me so much (without even realizing it). I’ll be at the motorcycle club on Sunday, but if there’s anything else I can do to help out I would really, really love to.
Take care,
Sam
***
Wow.
I think I read that email about 10 times over the course of the night, after the roller coaster of the day was done.
Like Sam, like so many of us, this city is our refuge, our haven, our place. We recognize it as ours even before we live here, and once we do, that feeling of belonging is cemented in our hearts.
I cannot begin to thank all of you who have sent me messages of hope and encouragement and love after my previous post. My mind is blown every time I think of all of you, wishing us well. (Sometime you guys make me cry, but it’s the good kind of crying so I don’t mind at all.)
Two of my friends— a past I Live Here: SF subject, Tucker, and his girlfriend Analise—took it upon themselves to organize a fundraiser party this Sunday at the same place I took Tucker’s photos almost two years ago: the venerable and historic San Francisco Motorcycle Club. Quite a few other I Live Here: SF subjects are donating wonderful items and bringing food. More than anything, I am looking forward to seeing so many of you (if you can make it) to thank you in person for your San Francisco-sized hearts. I can’t think of a better change of scenery than being surrounded by so many awesome people.
And you should come if only to welcome Sam to our community.
I would be hugely remiss in not thanking the wonderful blogging community who’ve been selflessly sharing the information about Sunday’s event: Uptown Almanac, Muni Diaries, Mission Mission, and Broke Ass Stuart. And my favorite brotographers and past CALIBER-mates at All City. Thank you thank you.
Me, at City Lights
On the stairs leading up to the Poetry Room
North Beach
Sometime in 2009
***
Some of you already knew that was me, and to the rest of you who didn’t: hello.
I started this project in early 2009 as a way to teach myself portraiture and to take my mind of the stress of being recently unemployed in the wake of the mortgage/housing debacle of late 2008. What started off as an innocent and enjoyable past-time became an important and healing part of my life. By interacting with so many wonderful strangers and future friends, all over the map of this 7×7 square mile bit of earth we call home, my life has been irrevocably changed for the better. I have learned so much from you: the people who have volunteered to stand before my lens, those who have written their stories and insights about our common city landscape, and those of you who have supported and encouraged my work.
The person you see in the photograph above is me, ascending the stairs at one of my favorite places in all of San Francisco, City Lights Books.
Who you don’t see in that picture, but who is just as present there as I am myself, is my partner and best friend of nine years. He’s the reason I’m holding that camera (the one I “borrowed” and somehow never returned) and the one who first truly encouraged me to develop my abilities as a photographer. Which has taken me to the pages of San Francisco magazine and the Chronicle to the walls of SOMArts as a grant recipient as well as to the walls of City Hall itself, and then to galleries across the United States. I cannot have been more blessed to have discovered my passion, many of my friends, and my city—all at the same time and all by the simplicity of picking up a camera and wondering what might happen next.
I love this city. I love it for all of the things that make it visually and emotionally beautiful. I even love the unpleasant things about the city, in a way. Because no thing shines as brightly without a shadow somewhere in the picture.
***
I have lived for six years in the Inner Sunset, with my friend, my camera, and my beloved Golden Gate Park. My neighborhood is quiet, and close to the green lungs that make an oasis amongst the sidewalks and hills of this place.
Today, I’m writing this story as I sit in the black hours of the morning, waiting for it to be light enough to start the day. My best friend, the one I’ve told you about, lies in a hospital bed across the bay, in an ICU unit. Two weeks ago, he suffered a massive stroke and now I turn to my beloved city even more for friendship and strength. As I write this, I am surrounded by boxes and many of our possessions that will be moved to storage far away. I do not know yet how he will recover from this stroke (my hopes are high) but right now, I must be practical and deal with the fact that he won’t be able to walk up the two flights of steps to our flat for many months, if ever. So my immediate home is not home anymore, but has been expanded to the limits of the city and the people in it who care about me.
***
The reason I mention this now is that I’d love your help, your ideas and your energy. I love my project, I Live Here: SF. I don’t want to have to give it up because now I have more immediate concerns and pressures.
I realize now that this project is not just mine, but part of the bigger community here: the one that has encouraged and supported me, and also one that wanted to share and be discovered.
There are people who have written stories and are waiting on me to photograph them, and I simply cannot say when that will happen again. But I want their stories and images to be shared here, and perhaps some of you would like to join in.
If any of you local SF photographers would like to be matched with some of the people who have written stories, and have your photos of them appear on this site, please be in touch with me at iliveheresf @ gmail.com. I may not be able to answer you immediately, given the urgent nature of all of the things I am trying to handle right now, but if you can be patient, I would love to have you participate in a way that could keep this portrait and story project going, and make it accessible to even more people.
And for those of you who would still like to write a story or poem to share on this site, please do be in touch. You can also find me on facebook @ julie michelle.
***
Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for being part of what makes San Francisco unique in all the world.
xoxo
Julie
ps. If nothing else, I would like all of you to be aware of the warning signs of stroke. Strokes can happen to anyone, at any age. Please read and understand this information. You could save the life of someone you love, or your own life: http://www.stroke.org/site/PageServer?pagename=symp
Inside The Original Perfect Hamburger, 601 Geary
The Tenderloin
Saturday afternoon
***
How-to TL
I. Lullaby
Tonight’s haze is hollow. Its curtain’s edge wedged under your neck like a pillow
you’ve lost between the sheets. You’re knees deep in a dream you just woke up from,
but can’t remember. March is June is August is November in the neighborhood
you once swore you’d move from soon if given the chance to. Month-to-month,
you nod yes instead, listening close for a hymn or a hello, even a scream as you lie sleepless.
A square-lit sky. An attention radio-tuned to the hum buzz of a Tsingtao sign fluttering
from the window at the open-door market you call a bodega. That’s the East Coast in you.
That’s the you wanting a familiar you can keep for longer than a weekend.
One block across, a six-foot shadow ducks to steer clear from the sun to come.
It’s not out yet, but they still are. Frightened of nothing but daylight and dim sum, sometimes.
Fire escape gardens that look like Pennsylvania in the dark quiet your jingling joints.
Keep your windows open after your eyes close, the front gate of your building cracked ajar
for the penny-palmed girl who may or may not live on the fourth floor. She carries the weight
of a worldwide in her eyes. Dimes in her pockets like prayers to rub for good luck,
each curve of their cameos memorized before she sleeps for the sole purpose of dreaming. Her mother tells her to.
And whether you need a break from the blighted, or just a pork sandwich,
know that either way,
you’re going to bed fed, too.
II. Dining Out
Shield your mouth with a napkin when teething gristle
to avoid self-inflicted stroking by the sexless. Offended
you are a female. The man in flannel sitting three tables away
knows the color of your earrings, the silky shape of your jawline when you chew.
The salt rounds of your tongue have granted him the power to see through clothing.
Linings and layers won’t matter, neither will ignoring. Your belly full of air. Your breasts
pulled plump from beneath your blouse by the moon-taut tide of his eyes tugging them closer. Hunch your shoulders forward to avoid the sore. Tip well if you feel the need to. Tip
if everything tasted like you had expected it to taste.
III. Morning Commute
Prepare your coffee before exiting. Hear the muffled double of the top lock click shut.
Pay attention to everything.
Soften the shock of a pantless man by keeping your head down, eyes angled away
just in case you magnet toward the two soiled flaps of his trench coat. He’s in front
of your building. Try not to look. Try not to laugh. Out of nervousness, lose your appetite
instead of the soft portobello of your heart. You have all day to be hungry. You have six months
left on your lease. Play for keeps. Tell yourself that he is graffiti if you need to. Change
will always jingle. Sheets of plastic will cover what you don’t want you to see.
You chose this neighborhood before it asked you to. Allow its concrete veins to crystallize the unfinished parts of your heart. Like that time the corner guy announced from atop his makeshift soapbox
you had A God on your arm. And to think,
you had considered flicking it off.
Hi everyone… it’s been a busy week and I hope you are having a fun Halloween today.
Here’s a bit of the Lit Crawl event for those of you who couldn’t join us, or for those of you who came to root us on (thank you!) and want to relive the fun.
Videographer Adam Griffiths made a great recap video of the readings in the alley, with excerpts from my reading, as well as excerpts from new stories written especially for the event by Michael, Beth and William. M.C. Mars, who also read, will be profiled on the site soon.
In social situations, I always look forward to the question “Where do you live?” and the 30 minutes of conversation that comes later.
I usually cite the weather, the out-of-the-crazy-city-feel, my backyard, space for my dog, the price, but most of all…I am in the Bayview for the PEOPLE.
Being a natural-born human interaction-watching lover/self-labeled urban anthropologist, the Bayview is one of my favorite community in San Francisco, and one, with which, I’ve quickly fell in love. In my neighborhood, my neighbors talk to one another. Children play in the middle of the street and yell “CAR!” when one’s coming. Sons help their grandmothers walk down the street and our convenience stores down the street know us by name.
When I first re-located to the Bayview from the Castro, I felt different than my community, yet accepted. My neighbors have cheered me on during softball games at Youngblood-Coleman field, and a day doesn’t go by where my roommates and I don’t talk to our fellow-Palou-ians.
Out of the deep respect I have for this community’s culture, it was hard for me to sit back and enjoy the gems of the Bayview without recognizing some of its challenges.
With few choices for fresh food, the highest obesity rate in San Francisco and a plethora of convenient stores touting chemically-flavored products, I figured I could use some of my local farm connections to improve my community and make it easier to get fresh, local organic vegetables into the hands of my neighbors.
Since I’ve worked at a couple farms and knew some wholesalers close by, I decided to give them a call and ask for some donations for a “veggie venture” in the Bayview. Jay at Hayes Valley Farm let my friends and I come harvest whatever they had. Veritable Vegetables told me to come pick up whatever leftover boxes they had and couldn’t sell. My idea to bring fresh vegetables to the Bayview was actually happening..and I almost couldn’t believe it.
From the idea stage to “launch,” everything happened so quickly. I borrowed a table. I received vegetable donations. My roommate, Erin and girlfriend, Crystal were excited to help. And one Saturday morning, we did it. The Veggie-Table became real.
The Veggie-Table sits at 3rd and Palou, on some Saturday mornings and local events and gives away fresh local organic donated vegetables. With the support from Crystal and Erin, we have given away pounds of spinach, potatoes, bok choy and collards. We talk to our neighbors about how to (simply) cook the vegetables, how their day is going, and usually try to insert a few sentences about how spinach is really delicious.
The smiles, questions, and hugs of appreciation we’ve received make this veggie venture not only about the food, but about the people.
…because that’s what it comes down to. If we’re not taking a few small steps to improve the lives of our neighbors, our communities will crumble.
It takes people who care about our community to encourage its strength. I’ve only been here for about one and a half years, but I already have seen amazing players in the fight to bring more rights to the Bayview. Organizations like Southeast Food Access work group and Quesada Gardens (to name a few) are out there fighting for food justice, community empowerment and simply put, working to help my neighbors.
So….
Come to Heron’s Head Park
Eat some fried chicken at Auntie April’s
come to a BBQ in a Bayview park
..and experience the beauty of my neighborhood and the amazing people who live here.
Can you help Andrea with getting veggies (restaurants, grocery store contacts, overabundant garden?) for her veggie table? Contact me at iliveheresf@gmail or get in touch with her via her facebook page: www.facebook.com/theveggietable. I know she’ll truly appreciate it!
I finally got around to picking up the Litquake Festival Guide last night… and then picked up four extra copies.
Guys, we’re the first event listed in the Lit Crawl guide! And there’s a star next to the venue!
Now I’m even more excited than I was before about this reading, and maybe a little more nervous too. But seeing our names in print = awesome. I’m so proud of these fabulous I Live Here: SF readers and can’t wait to hear them onstage.
He squats on the floor, squared shoulders flank a loose ponytail as he sprays & scrubs the edges of the refrigerated case door. He turns on his sneakered toes and cocks his head to greet me. A stroke of blush softens his masculine cheek, a shade of pink has kissed his lips. But it’s his curled eyelashes that give her away.
“I’m giving up dairy,” I squat down next to her, “trying to go fully vegan.” It’s my latest pronouncement after landing home in our City by the Gays.
I’ve come straight from the airport to Rainbow Grocery, the cooperative health food Mecca where hipster boys and hippie girls come out of their carnivorous ways. But my immediate thrill is this resident vegan: a transitioning boy strategically placed as a reminder that options live here, and define us all.
“The almond milk line is too watery,” he shares. “And the soy line has that strange after taste.” She scrunches her mouth. When he stands, her plaid flannel falls open to accentuate her feminine jeans loving her hips, while the masculine hugs his thick ankles.
I stand up to drink her in – all half-trans of him– and smile to show how pleased I am that he can live exactly as she wishes in our shared city of freaks. Michael Franti, San Francisco’s culture loving hero, fills my head with how all the freaky people make the beauty of the world, and I remember people live here because no one ever has to be who she or he is to full effect. They can evolve into who they will become over a day, a weekend, or grow into themselves over years. Here you can reinvent yourself time and time again, and no one will hold you to a previous version of yourself.
I’m beaming from inside out to quietly praise her feminine demeanor and note how the color of her tank top matches the thinnest line in his flannel’s plaid. Then all six feet of him stands in order to meet me face-to-face.
“But this, the coconut milk,” she waves her finger towards the So Delicious line, “it really is delicious. And their creamer, it’s super smooth, I love it.” Her delicate voice complements her perfume to blend with fresh air coming out of the refrigerated closet.
“Thank you!” I’m so giddy that I worry it might be overkill. As if I didn’t land here at 22 to find my way, but like it’s my first time out of my house. My enthusiasm is gratitude for her seasoned vegan palette, and I’m thrilled that she’s given me her polite indoctrination into his dairy-free world. Eagerness bubbles to my surface from having just flown home from D.C., the District of Conservative, where button-downs and khakis are still the preppy uniform. Where the boy at the farmers market doesn’t even know whether the produce at his fruit stand is free of life-killing sprays. I’m thanking her ahead of time for my travels back to the Midwest a week from now, where I will have realized for the last time that misjudged slurs continuously slip off inebriated tongues. And that meanwhile, there is where obesity has rooted itself in its mothers and its fathers, to trickle down into its children, only to be chastised by grandparents enslaved to their motorized wheelchairs and handicapped by their own weight. There is where shame counts calories to take on a morbid shape, and foreshadows a looming health crisis served as obscene portions with a side basket of fries. I don’t dare utter words of sexual liberation, or coming out into your own, or even veganism. If I do, they mistake it as the latest dogma to creep up as religion.
But here in the brightly lit grocery store aisle, a budding woman’s grace shows me the straight path to veganism through the coconut line, and I drop into my body for the first time in weeks. Coconut—a hard nut that falls from unsteady palms and lands on soft sand to float out to sea—known for its versatility, as it morphs from water, into oil, and then milk. A hairy outer shell, that when cracked open reveals a smooth inner layer baring rich fruit. Her optimism is what most people west of the Sierras deem eccentric, his certainty I celebrate as grounding. These who look, speak, dress, and live differently outside the middle’s “norm” have become my elixir, and I drink San Francisco’s finest in order to quench my Midwestern dehydration. I’m thanking him because in this town, the she in the he can both live here. And because I’m relieved that inside his body—and deep inside her mind—diverse personalities have the chance to peacefully reside. In our City full of Play, we‘ve all come out: geographically, spiritually, sexually, and most likely all three. We live here because where we spawned from never quite felt like home. Because here we thrive on being new again, beyond the boundaries that may have been imposed on us, so we can be free to create our new normal.
In San Francisco, we move and grow between the hills and the Bay. While somewhere, over at Rainbow, a transgender vegan smiles at a recovering WASP and reminds her that she is welcome—next to the pot of gold—just as she is.
Please join us for the I Live Here: SF storytelling portion of Lit Crawl!
October 15 at 6pm!
Clarion Alley (Valencia Street side, near Community Thrift)
***
From the Litquake website: Join participants of Julie Michelle’s ongoing portrait and storytelling project “I Live Here:SF” as they read about their relationship with San Francisco and why this city keeps their hearts aflutter. Their new SF stories, written especially for Lit Crawl, will be read in Phase 1 (6-7pm) in Clarion Alley.
Readers:
Mark Bittner is the author of a book and the human subject of the documentary film, both titled The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.
Julie Michelle is a photographer and writer who started the ongoing portrait/storytelling project of SF residents, I Live Here: SF in March 2009. http://iliveheresf.com/
Beth Spotswood writes two weekly SFGate columns, works for CBS San Francisco, co-hosts the political satire Web show, Necessary Conversation, and stalks you on Facebook.
William Taylor, Jr.‘s collection of poetry, The Hunger Season, was released in 2009, and An Age of Monsters will be released October 31st.
***
Hello everyone!
It’s been a busy summer, and I am honored that I Live Here: SF will be representing San Francisco’s storytellers in the Clarion Alley venue. And I Live Here: SF will continue with more stories and portraits of San Franciscans over the coming months and—hopefully years—but before then, I hope you can join us on October 15!
I SAW YOU ON THE BUS DOWNTOWN AGAIN TODAY (HELLO STRANGER)
WITH APOLOGIES TO BARBARA LEWIS
I moved across a bay
to escape
your memory.
But the last time
I climbed on to
a bus downtown,
it was the most
crowded
bus
I’d ever been on,
People pushing and shifting,
tidal,
like the front row of the Danzig show
we went to
that time you lost your skirt,
or cattle on a train.
I looked up, and there you were,
(Hello Stranger)
holding Addy,
both of you smiling down
at me from
just above all of our heads,
nestled
between an ad for a
personal injury lawyer
and another
for
City College.
Both of you
smiling down on me,
(Sh-bop sh-bop my baby)
like a spotlight
just on
me,
(Sh-bop sh-bop my baby oooh)
even in
the late afternoon
sun,
taking me from
there,
all the way back home.
But no.
Just a photo.
This ain’t no fucking metaphor,
it wasn’t a woman that looked like you,
it was a picture of you.
(Seems so good to see you back again,)
Stock photography,
taken from way back
then
(how long has it been? A-ooh)
and put on this city bus,
a spot for
women’s services.
“I never hit her,”
I wanted to say, to explain,
(It seems like a mighty long time)
“I wouldn’t!”
But, of course,
they couldn’t know,
wouldn’t care.
Just some woman
and a little girl
in an ad on the bus.
***
(Oh my my my,
sh-bop, sh-bop my baby)
***
I had almost forgotten the
incident until
today. I got on
the bus, downtown
again.
I looked up,
expecting to
see you there again
and
(seems like a mighty long time)
sure enough,
there was
your
(I’m so glad
you stopped to say hello to me,)
face,
your faces. Smiling down
on me.
(remember that’s the way it used to be?)
***
You told me
you’d like to see it sometime
(Sh-bop sh-bop, my baby oooh).
Well meet me
downtown, Baby-Girl.
We’ll ride the bus.
Jonathan was a participant in I Live Here:SF and developed the Tenderlogues series for local writers to share their stories of the Tenderloin. I work with the writers on their portraits for the series. Jonathan and I felt this collaboration was a perfect compliment to the work here on I Live Here:SF, so I will be sharing future Tenderlogues writers with you from time to time.
I was born in a leper colony in Molokai, Hawaii on December 25th, 1930. I have a daughter, whose name is Naleni, which means “the beautiful one.”
I moved to San Francisco in 1941 and worked as a longshoreman for many years. The most incredible moment of my youth was having tea with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace. That experience is truly one for the books!
Ernest Hemingway is my favorite author. I believe that Hemingway’s books have magic. I dream of going back to Hawaii for a vacation. I miss speaking my native language.
***
Chris was introduced to me and I Live Here: SF by the wonderful people at the Center for Elders and Youth in the Arts (CEYA), a local non-profit that is part of the Institute on Aging. CEYA provides provides specialized visual and performing arts programming tailored to the Bay Area older adult population.
