Shaine

At the Japanese Tea Garden
Golden Gate Park
Monday morning

***

My City Wants To Dance

Amber

On the shore of Stow Lake
Golden Gate Park
Monday afternoon

***

San Francisco has always been a place of wonder for me. As a kid, my family visited San Francisco fairly regularly because my parents attended conventions at Moscone Center and the San Francisco Gift Center. I remember a lot of things about those visits. I remember the feeling I had coming through the tunnel on Yerba Buena Island and seeing the city spread out just beyond the arc of the Bay Bridge. I remember staying in the Hyatt Regency and watching Spice World while eating room service pizza. I still love standing in the lobby of that hotel looking up, in awe of the geometric architecture and immense open space. I remember being under the care of my childhood babysitter Jennifer and going to the Exploratorium where my three-year-old brother got lost and then came over the loudspeaker looking for “my Jennifer”. Sometimes, she would take us to her apartment in the Mission to pick up her dog and go to the dog beach. Once, she took us to a taqueria on Haight Street, where I had my first burrito and marveled at how many people were stuffed in such a small space. I remember going to the café at the top of Moscone Center that looks over SOMA and makes it look like a diorama or postcard. I remember eating at Gira Polli on Colombus Avenue. I remember visits to the Fog City Diner because my mom loved the crab cakes. I loved sitting in the high back booths and looking out the window and seeing nothing but thick fog. It charmed me how the wait staff was so dressed up and I loved looking at all the framed tchotckes in the hallway near the bathroom. I relished staying at the very pastel Ocean Park Motel and going to the San Francisco Zoo. I remember seeing the knobby trees in the museum concourse in Golden Gate Park and how there used to be different freeway exits coming off of 101. I remember visiting Thomas E. Cara Ltd. in North Beach and falling in love with all the dresses in the windows of stores nearby. I remember kicking my brother in the middle of the night on a rollaway bed at the Campton Place hotel and how he screamed loudly and woke up my parents. I remember going to see the “Raised by Wolves” exhibit by Jim Goldberg at the SFMOMA, but was more enthralled by the “Émigré” exhibit up at the same time. It was this visit that inspired me to pursue study in graphic design.

When I turned 18, I did move to the Bay Area, but not San Francisco. I spent four years living in Oakland and attending classes at an art school in San Francisco. I loved my time in the city and remember visiting my boyfriend who lived in the Mission and introduced me to Thai food, Macintosh computers, Craigslist, BiRite, Dolores Park and crazy roommates. After six years of living in the East Bay, I still wanted to live in San Francisco instead of driving over a bridge or traveling under water to get there.

I’ve now lived in San Francisco for almost four years and the Bay Area for almost ten. I have to say that the past four years have been some of the best years of my life. Living in San Francisco, I feel as if I have had opportunities to do things that I had never thought possible. I now work for a company that I had always dreamed of working for while in college. I live in one of those cute apartments that overlook a hill covered in the pastel buildings of the Richmond District. I have met amazing people that I know will be in my life for a long time. I have recently lost about 90 pounds, which is something I had previously thought as insurmountable.

It’s amazing how much wonder and power can be held in such a small area. Some of the most amazing people in the world live here. There are stories on every street corner and in the corner of every apartment. We live in a combination of history and future. This city is electric.

***

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

Amber’s website is http://ambercarsonmiller.com

LaDonna

There are moments that never fade with time. You can call them up in an instant over years, over decades, and their colors remain as brilliant as ever.

It has been ten years now since our big yellow moving truck lumbered out of the Waldo Tunnel and I caught my breath as the bright towers of the Golden Gate Bridge shot into view. That was the moment I came home for the first time.

I grew up in one of those wholesome towns in the Midwest, surrounded by a vast green ocean of cornfields. Despite a storybook childhood replete with fuzzy puppies and devoted parents, I hit puberty feeling like there might be something profoundly wrong with me.

I almost fit in, but not quite. Something was always off. I was never on the same page, the same boat, the same planet as the rest of my classmates, my friends or my fellow 4-H’ers.

By the time I reached my early twenties, I was living near Chicago, writing copy for an ad agency, spending my weekends as a black-clad club kid and penning maudlin poetry about my inability to find happiness.

Happiness isn’t a place, according to conventional wisdom. But I never was one for conventions.

I don’t know why I didn’t think of leaving Illinois sooner. Perhaps I was waiting for some kind of permission, some indisputable sign. It came in 1998 in the form of a guy named Bruce. We weren’t yet married when he pulled out a map of the United States, spread it open on the table and said, “If you could move anywhere in the country, where would you go?”

It took me about two seconds to say, “San Francisco.”

I had never been to the city, but I had heard the stories. I read the books. And as soon as I said it, I knew it was right.

Two years later, I sat weeping and astonished in the front seat of a moving truck as we rolled across the bridge, the fog reaching out to welcome us.

I can’t imagine myself anyplace else. This is where I belong, here in this beautiful city of misfits.

This city is more than famous landmarks and steep hills. It’s more than eclectic architecture and summer fog. It’s more than hippies and beatniks and liberals and homeless. It’s more than a muse, more than a melting pot. There is something inexpressible about this city, something virtually magical.

In San Francisco, you are allowed to be whoever you really are. This city will give you the chance to find yourself and the inspiration to make that self a better person.

From that very first day to this, I am constantly overcome with miniature love epiphanies as I wander around San Francisco streets. Topping Twin Peaks to see the whole bay stretched out before me like a promise. Watching the fog creep up Judah Street like a damp, benevolent cat. Running through Golden Gate Park in the early morning as the light begins to glimmer through the green. Feeling the salt coat my face as the waves throw themselves again and again onto the sand at Ocean Beach.

Every time it happens is new. No matter how many times I’ve seen it before, I fall in love all over again.

And so I’ve built a life here, at land’s end. I’ve discovered who I am. I’ve learned to be happy. I’ve come home.

***

Eric

Inside the Spreckels’ Temple of Music (aka the bandshell)
Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park
Sunday afternoon

***

It’s 1992 and I have to get out of here. I’m in Denver, feeling none to good about life and in a failed relationship. I actually received a decent tax refund that year, and figured that if I sold my car and a couple of trumpets, I might have just enough to get out… just. But where?

I’m a skilled audio engineer and a graduate of a great music school (though I hadn’t played a note in two years). New York? Obvious choice. But I didn’t know a soul there, and more importantly, it was out of reach monetarily. L.A.? Next obvious choice. But it seemed overwhelming, and in my current mental state, just too much to consider. I have a sister in Fremont.. that’s near San Francisco. The one time I visited that city I felt immediately at home there. Hhmmm. I could ask her too look around for an apartment… Plus I can get around by bus and train…. done!

My first apartment was a studio on Powell Street between Bush and Pine. $650 a month! That was $400 more than my much larger Denver apartment, but I had to get out!

San Francisco was not easy at first, but the difficulties of finding a job, making rent, and daily life helped to distract me from myself. Broadcasting had been a home for me since my college days, and I found a radio job just in the nick of money-running-out-time. From there I got my head on straight, and in 1997 I thought I would go over to Union Music and see if I could still play a note. After seven years I had no strength or endurance, but the tone was still there, tone is everything….

There have been ups and downs, the same struggles as anyone, but San Francisco has been good to me, no doubt. I even met my wife on the 22-Fillmore! I’ve been here so long that I feel like a native, but the truth is that San Francisco adopted me, and that’s why I live here…. and being close to the wine country doesn’t hurt either.

***

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

You can find Eric performing around the Bay Area. Here are his links to a variety of activities…

His website: http://www.brassandzin.com
Cartoon Jazz Band: http://www.cartoonjazzorchestra.com
Quintet: http://www.hornsaplenty.org
Golden Gate Park Band: http://www.goldengateparkband.org

Abby

Peek-a-boo; I see trees…glorious, glorious trees. And they are everywhere in San Francisco! OK, so maybe there aren’t so many on Taraval Street, but I do take great pride in this whole backyard thing we’ve got going on in the Outer Sunset. And I must say, it’s a whole other world out here in the Avenues than it is in downtown San Francisco. Having grown up in New York City where my bedroom window overlooked a hard, grey, lifeless alley, I am really getting into experiencing these soft, green, living beings that never sway the same way twice in the salty Ocean Beach breeze… OK wind…OK torrential wind, depending on the season.

I admit that living out here took some getting used to. In Manhattan I was lulled (oddly enough) to sleep by sirens, car alarms, and that on-again off-again couple who would either be cursing or sloppily making out. It took me a good year or so to get used to the still and quiet. And at first, it was frightening! The thing of horror flicks. I expected Freddy, Jason, or even little, well-dressed twins to appear at any given moment in this suburban alcove of greater San Francisco. Once I got used to the peaceful nature of this community (and watched fewer movies), I noticed that there was, most definitely, movement and noise, albeit on a different decibel.

There’s the “L” train that can be heard in the distance, the creaking of a rusted swing set next door, that tsunami evacuation drill on Tuesdays at noon, those red-tailed hawks swooping across yards to look for gophers, that dude across the block who practices for his DJ gigs, the Australian Shepherds who are trying to get to know one another through fences, the crash of a white capped wave, and those trees, brushing leaves against one another like crickets. Ahhhh… to revel in the joys of suburban city life!

***

You can see the rest of Abby’s photo shoot here.

Harriet

Shakespeare’s Garden
Golden Gate Park
Saturday afternoon

***

I first moved out west in 2005 to dance for the now-defunct Oakland Ballet. I had only been to California once before, for four days, so it was quite a leap for me to move here. I remember looking out the airplane window thinking we were landing on the moon. Cue dream sequence: “Sorry for the interruption, passengers. We’ve had to make a slight detour on our way to our end-destination of San Francisco…”

The landscape was different from anything I’d seen on the East Coast growing up. The hills were so brown and big and the sky was so blue. Living in Oakland was exciting, but limiting. I moved to the “Tender-Nob” once the ballet’s short, 10-week contract was over. An excellent choice in hindsight – the Oakland Ballet went bankrupt shortly thereafter. Having missed all auditions for the following year due to injury, I started working as a legal assistant for an attorney in Noe Valley. Mr. Attorney introduced me to some of the finer culinary offerings in San Francisco. We had special lunches at Zuni Café, The Rotunda at Neiman Marcus, A16, and were regulars at Savor and Chloe’s. Who am I kidding – we were regulars at Zuni, too. And yes, you should have the chicken.

While working my day-job, I kept taking ballet class and Pilates in hopes of finding a job. I know it’s cliché, but I didn’t seem to be in the right place at the right time. Worried about emotionally burdening The Boyfriend; he had followed me out here from DC in 2006. Getting really tired of acquaintances asking my why I didn’t dance for San Francisco Ballet. So I took a nine-day trip to Germany, tossing around the possibility of relocating. Rumor was that Deutschland was the Shangri-la of dance opportunity for a taller, older dancer. On my trip I learned lots about Germany I liked – beer, culture, food, old buildings, trains – but I missed San Francisco.

I had a few auditions scheduled after I returned, one with Ballet San Jose. After the audition a trio of participants stayed to speak with the director. I felt good about my performance in the audition, and felt fortunate to speak to the Director afterward, but I’d had that feeling before. That feeling, the fluttery, suppressed nervousness, had been rewarded in the past with nothing. I waited, trying to convince myself I was waiting for nothing, or if not nothing, then at least more rejection. I was formulating plan-B’s right and left. I was going to “get on with my life.” The boyfriend kept talking me down.

The Director, Dennis, called me in August while I was shopping on Polk Street with a friend. I picked up the phone, nerves going haywire – no contract, but he was trying to find some money to hire me for the season; he’d call me back next week. I’d been around the proverbial block. I knew what that meant: we like you, but we’re waiting to hear back from our first choice. But now there was a small part of me that was even more excited; my hope had rekindled itself. The week passed. Another week, and still nothing. Hope was doused. Then, on a quiet day at the office, a quick call from Dennis: I’d like to offer you a company contract. Me: wait – when do we start? Dennis: October first. Click. I had a dance job.

Decisions. Should I move to San Jose? Should I commute from SF? How do I commute if I don’t have a car? Do I buy a car? The season (weeks of work) didn’t seem long enough to merit moving to San Jose, and more importantly I didn’t want to give up the gifts San Francisco has to offer. San Francisco was worth the commute and still is.