Category: Personal

Well, I lost my head in San Francisco
Waiting for the fog to roll out
But I found it in a rain cloud
It was smiling down

San Francisco by The Mowglis

Farewell, San Francisco.

I never meant to love you. People asked me, “How do you feel about the city?” I would always respond, “It’s good, plenty to like. But I’ll be ready to go when the time comes.”

That time has come, and you’ve called my bluff.

We grew from strangers to friends during long weekend walks across sleepy city streets, moving from sun to fog, cresting steep hills to reveal breathtaking vistas. You taught me the charm of culture and variety through neighborhoods that merge with each other while remaining wholly distinct, creating a patchwork of people with their own stories and lives, each of them making this city uniquely their home.

As we spent those hours together, ambling without purpose or drive, solely focused on exploring, I found many of your quirks and surprises that you hide away from endeavoring tourists. Each new staircase, sculpture, and park brought me further into your fold, enamoring me and making me realize that you could also be a home for me.

But you are not just the streets and rolling hills. You’re more than artwork on sidewalks and coffee shops, more than your greenspace and restaurants and museums. Like all of us, you’re made of the bits of personality provided by every person here. More than anything, I love San Francisco because I love the people I’ve met, and I now have the great fortune to include them among my friends.

These people, each bringing their own history to bear on this city and our time together, are incredibly special and dear to me. I’m amazed I found such a supportive and inclusive group full of laughs and care and joy. I could say so much, but I will be brief: I am a much better person for having met them.

I promise to visit and spend time once again walking your streets. You’ll no longer be my home, but I will be thrilled to see an old friend I found on accident who impacted my life tremendously and shaped how I approach the world.

Farewell, and thank you.

The world plays tricks on us. Nature can be brutal and unforgiving. It simply is; if you are on the wrong side of it being what it is, so much the worse for you. But look closely: there are moments of pure fairness, perhaps of generosity, that peek through.

Consider the late afternoon on a viciously cold winter day. A biting wind winds its way through the air, its icy tendrils working its way in the gaps of your scarf, slapping at the inch of exposed skin between sleeves and gloves, sweeping across your nose. The air is pure and frozen. Snow deadens the world; it muffles sound that paradoxically travels farther and clearer.

As you walk through the landscape, the snow shuffling and crunching beneath your boots, the world around you lays dormant. A few evergreens continue to defy the slumber surrounding them, while the birds have moved elsewhere, plants are brown, the palette of the world has been deadened and dulled.

Yet some early evenings hold a surprise: the sun begins its plummet to the horizon to begin another moonlit night that stays brighter than one imagines, as the cold reflected light meets a glinting snow cover that palely illuminates the world. Thinking about this black-and-white night, anticipating the warmth of a fire and the cozy companionship of others, you see vivid pinks and purples and reds blazing in the distance. Truffula tree and cotton candy clouds, backlit from a now invisible source, lazily move along in the cold wind; their luminance is entirely ignorant of the world below.

Standing outside in a biting world somehow intensifies the hues. They shine vivid and hopeful through spidery limbs of leafless trees. They attract shivering eyes and halt chattering teeth, and steamy breaths release quiet Wow‘s that reverberate through the chilly air. It is a simple joy of the world that accelerates the spirit through the forthcoming night.

Groups of people can’t be forced to mesh. The intangible qualities of a team that works well together develops naturally through experience with each other and a shared understanding of their goal. It often requires leadership. Once everyone is flowing together, occupying their well-defined roles, the planned injection of a some humor or event to bond over becomes a layer of glue rather than a wedge of forced corporate optimism.

What I’m really saying is that I made a mug last year for my team at work, and I’m finally getting around to sharing it.

My boss is known for his heavy use of cliches in everyday conversation, so we decided to honor that. Because everyone is in on the joke, it works out well.