St. Frances' Favorite Spot in the City

St. Frances and I drove to Grand View Park today, her favorite spot in the city. When she first moved here, St. F signed up for a stairway tour of San Francisco and she discovered a lot of the city's best vantage points. Grand View Park's Turtle Hill is her favorite for many reasons... the mosaic stairway up from 16th Avenue, surrounded by gardens... how fat the succulents grow around the hill, gorged on salty sea air... and not least the view from Ocean Beach to the Transamerica Building. It's one of the few places, where you can see all 7 miles of San Francisco.

It's also the place Diego, St. F and I came to hang out the day we decided to live together. The actual moment we committed to it was over a bowl of noodles in the Richmond, but before we got hungry, we stood on top of Turtle Hill on a warm foggy day and surveyed our city. I did some sun salutations. St. F chatted with one of the ladies from the neighborhood who tends the gardens along the mosaic stairway. Diego drove us to lunch and nudged the conversation to housing.

Today, just after the sun set at 5:20, St. Frances and I huddled against the wind and watched four little boys scramble up the exposed roots of the windswept pines at the top.

"Bins, he's wearing a conductor's outfit!" The littlest one, maybe four or five, was indeed dressed as a train conductor, maybe his costume from Halloween. I smiled and looked across at the lights coming on in the homes climbing Forest Knolls.

"I don't think I ever planned to live here," I said. "I spent a lot more time thinking I'd live in Shanghai or New York, or stay in DC. But if it weren't for you and Diego and Ash, I wouldn't have moved here."

In that brief moment today, I was reminded of all the wonder with which I beheld San Francisco before I moved here. The salty sea air, the forest-covered hills, the looming skyline... I imagine even the streets of Heaven, paved with gold, can become quotidian, but not San Francisco. I never want to get used to it.