Jamie

On Page Street
Hayes Valley
Thursday afternoon

***

After college, I moved to the west coast. I knew that I had to leave the South. Not because I disliked my home, but because if I did not move away then, I never would. I was a city girl in training, and knew I could not run with the big guns in Los Angeles, San Francisco or even Seattle, so I picked Portland. The perfect little city of the Northwest. I walked to work, rode my bike to dinner, took the train to see my uncle, and drove an hour to the beach. Unfortunately, life was so perfect that I became bored. After a couple years I knew that if I stayed, I would sink into the Portland perfection and never get out.

Then I met a boy. A city boy that had lived in Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and now Portland. Dallas was where he grew up and he never had good things to say about LA. San Francisco, however, was his utopia. He talked of living in the Presidio with the ocean out his bedroom window. He talked of scooter rallies to Point Reyes. He talked about Chinatown and the Castro. Presidio? Point Reyes? Castro? None of these words meant anything to me because I had never been to San Francisco. He recommended that I change that.

This big city boy had also spent 6 months in Thailand before moving to Portland, and he talked about it all the time. Thailand this, Thailand that. In fact, he resented Portland for pulling him away from the Land of Smiles and because of this, the perfection that bored me after two years, bored him after two months. A year after we met, he was anxious to leave, and I was anxious to leave with him.

I still had big city dreams, and New York quickly became my top choice. I had done the west coast thing, now it was time to try the east coast thing. To him, San Francisco was still the place of perfection, so his choice was obvious. We did our due diligence by visiting both cities to weigh the pros and cons. He took me up to Twin Peaks and walked me through the Presidio. I took him to the top of Rockefeller Center and walked him through Central Park. He fed me Mexican food on Mission, and I fed him gourmet food in Soho. He met my friends, and I met his friends. In the end, it was a wash. We could be happy on either coast, and to avoid making the decision we decided to take a hiatus and skip off to Thailand!

For six months we lived the life of an old retired couple in the northern city of Chiang Mai. No work, just play. We ate fresh fruit, had amazing meals for $1, explored lush green mountains on a motorbike, and stared out our apartment window to watch the ice cream man walk by every afternoon. We also sat on the other side of the world while the American stock market crashed and our country went into the deepest recession in decades. When our six month retirement was over, we knew that neither New York nor San Francisco was an option. Instead we followed a work opportunity to Shanghai.

Shanghai is a big city. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the big city either of us had dreamed of. We did enjoy exploring and riding our bikes to unknown places, but the insane work hours and pollution got to us. After ten months, the economy had regained some of its ground and we were ready to leave.

San Francisco and New York were back on the table. This time the decision was much simpler because we knew each other better. We were happiest in Thailand spending our days together soaking up the natural beauty, but knew official retirement in our twenties was not an option. We hated Shanghai because work monopolized our time and pollution filled our lungs, but loved living in the midst of a dense urban place. New York fulfilled our dreams of exploration and professional opportunities, but those opportunities would likely require 80 hours a week on a regular basis. San Francisco, however, had similar professional opportunities at a much slower pace, and is set in one of the most beautiful natural landscapes in America. Like I said, the choice was simple.

On February 7, 2010 we boarded a one way flight to the Golden Gate! We found a furnished apartment near Alamo Square, and took advantage of our unemployment by exploring on a daily basis. Eventually the reality of working for a living caught up with us, and we focused on finding jobs. Since then we have slowly settled into daily life as urban dwellers, but still find new experiences every day. In many ways, our story is like Goldilocks. Thailand was way too soft. Shanghai was way too hard. Now San Francisco is just right!!

***

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

Jamie’s blog: www.jamiesinz.com

Jamie’s San Francisco Streets photo series: www.jamiesinz.com/san-francisco-streets