Elizabeth

Noe Valley Farmer’s Market
24th Street
Saturday morning

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I decided to move here when I was eleven. I came on my very first parent-less flight to visit my cousin who had moved here with the dot com rush. We explored the vistas, barked at the sea lions, got lost in Virgin Records (RIP), and then I was force-fed sushi until I fell in love and, well, knew I needed to be a part of it somehow.  I didn’t actually get here for another twelve years, but, you know, moving- it’s a process.

When I did actually move here two years ago, it was the result of two mistakes. I was disgruntled with my choice of graduate school in England and then, directly afterward, was disgruntled with my choice of men in Los Angeles. I needed something to work. I needed to love where I was living again and to love the people I surrounded myself with. And really, at that point, I would have taken either.  Simply put, when I took a step back and realized I was finally living in California and NOT in San Francisco, I knew what had to be done. It fulfilled both of those requests.  I had continued visiting San Francisco each summer through high school, learning and growing all the while. I thought about attending undergraduate here, tried to convince Berkeley to take an out-of-state-er for graduate school, and now, free of standardized education, I hadn’t actually taken the move upon myself.  It was ludicrous I hadn’t made it here yet.  So in June 2008, the day after my birthday, I convinced one of those Los Angeles men to move me here.

Now I live in Noe Valley where, other than my roommates, I am probably the only stroller-less, dog-less, single female under the age of 35 who doesn’t frequent a nail salon. I actually love it. Those double-wide strollers need space and those dogs need parks so my neighborhood has greenery everywhere and amazingly wide, manicured sidewalks.  Within three blocks from my house in any given direction I have one sushi restaurant (thank god), one pizza joint, two Indian restaurants, two Chinese restaurants, two Italian, one Thai, two big breakfast hangover cafes, and two coffee shops. And that’s not even on my neighborhood’s high street which is 24th.  I am probably also one of the few working Noe Valley residents who doesn’t commute downtown for her job. Instead, I walk dogs, managed a cafe in the Castro for some time, and volunteer most Saturdays at our farmer’s market. Actually, therein lies my real love for this city.  I visited our market the very first Saturday that I moved to San Francisco and have been involved ever since.  At an hour way too early for me to ever pretend I enjoy, I walk up to 24th St to help set up tables, chairs, tents, signs, and assist the vendors in any way they need with their stands as well.  Oftentimes my fingers are frigid from the cold air and the ice-packed greens.  Oftentimes I still have pajamas on under my jacket. And oftentimes I think how crazy some of my neighbors must be up before me and jogging with those strollers. But the sunrises, morning cloud breaks in an other-wise foggy day, and the comradery with both the vendors and patrons keeps me going.  In fact, literally. Primarily, I never have to buy my vegetables, fruits, bread, honey or my eggs at a grocery store. Never. Secondly, I have been introduced to many urban-farms throughout the city where I garden regularly.  Thirdly, I was asked to manage our first seasonal farmer’s market this last year. And fourth of all, I was hired to be an apprentice at one of our vendor’s farms for the 2010 season.

I must say I’m not surprised to be living here now; But I guess that’s really just because I was lucky enough to be exposed to the everyday surprises San Francisco is unique for some time ago.  I just got distracted in the interim. So therein, lies a bit of my past, a bit of my present, and a bit of where I am headed next in this beautiful city by the bay.

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You can see a slideshow of Elizabeth’s photo shoot here.

You can visit Elizabeth’s Etsy shop, Felt and Flowers, here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/FeltandFlowers

Rachael and Lili Bean

Growing up in Tennessee in the 70s with a single mom, we had an “npr/food co-op/flea market life”. I used to go up and visit Frieda our attic neighbor. All sorts of Technicolor groovy posters hung in her tiny wood paneled apartment. She wore cool bellbottoms and fed me peanut butter sandwiches on homemade whole wheat bread. We had a lot of neighbors like Frieda back in those days. When the 80s happened, big hair and bad fashions grabbed me by the bolo tie and didn’t let go until about 1987. My young heart pined for the typical suburban life like that of most people I knew in the catholic school I was sent to due to my ‘assimilation troubles’. Somewhere along the way something snapped in me. I began to see my childhood days of warm wood paneling, friends living in communal houses, flea markets and swimming in creeks as the best times of my life. I vowed to never, ever live in a suburb after all.

After putting myself through college working a series of lowly positions in sometimes humiliating menial jobs, in 1997 I was invited in the form of an employment offer to be part of the dotcom boom in San Francisco. I decided pretty quickly to do it, and said goodbye to my family and the fireflies of Tennessee. I became part of the reviled wave of newcomers to the bay area known as ‘dotcommers’. Sadly, I was never one of the overpaid ones that typified the cliché. Those dotcom days were grand, filled with lavish parties and a general running wild about my new city. Even the dotcom bust of 2000, while stressful, was mostly a barrel of fun. Everyone was laid off and we all suffered through it together. I was quite happy with my creative projects, stock options and severance packages. I mostly thought about design and art and what I might be doing after work. Sometime around my 35th birthday I started to sing ‘is that all there is’ irony free and most likely out of key. One day, I was in my doorway on Bush street just about to go out for a wander. “Since my friend the internet had given me so much already in life, why not see if it can find a special someone for me?”, I questioned myself. In those days there was still a stigma attached [there might be still, I don’t know] to using ‘dating sites’ so I had no interest in doing that. What I did was pull up a profile on Friendster. I kept it open and told myself that if, post-exercise session, I still felt like it, I would send a message.

I came back and wrote a witty [I thought] little intro to the guy who was smiling up at the coffeemaker as if it was a Buddha on a mountain. A day or so later, I got a reply. We traded banter back and forth for a couple of months. I went to a party at his office/warehouse and later he invited me to his birthday party at Zeitgeist, and this is when we hit it off. He proposed to me on my birthday in May of 2005 on Telegraph Hill with parrots swooping and squawking all around us. We got married at the Log Cabin in the Presidio in December.

On my birthday in 2008, Lili Bean was born. This seemingly conventional life that I’ve found in San Francisco is one that I never expected after a lifetime pretty close to unconventionality. I never pictured myself settling down like this and being happy with it. But I did and I am. We hope to raise our little native San Franciscan in the city of her birth, with generous visits to Tennessee thrown in. She must see fireflies and swim in a few creeks. She’ll definitely be going to flea markets and having pbj’s on homemade bread, too.