The kind of place

“My headmaster is visiting, can you open the gallery?” I pause for too long not because I’m wondering whether my key to the auditorium will also open the gallery, but because he says headmaster so lightly, as if we all have one. I’m reminded of riding the train to work one day, sitting next to a talkative woman who mentions her brother-in-law, the rocket scientist, and it was the first and only time I looked away from the window towards her and repeated, “Rocket scientist?” Headmasters and rocket scientists are, to me, the stuff of novels, like a high school romance or traveling to Europe as a child. But this is the kind of place where people do have headmasters, and famous last names and slow summers and time to think.

Note: Late Summer

I can’t see the Golden Gate Bridge outside my window, but if I step outside, turn left, climb six blocks and then turn around, there it is, the tip-top of my famous neighbor. Walking around the neighborhood, I find that the bridge gets lost among the steep hills, skyscrapers, and fog, and soon forget it is there until I turn this or that corner and behold, unannounced but always welcome. Driving away from the city on Nineteenth Avenue, I see the bridge in my rearview mirror, its splendor reduced to a red speck. Regardless of how many times I’ve seen it, I pause, struck that for once the commonplace and the majestic are one in the same. “The image of the Golden Gate is very strong in my mind. As unifying images go this one is particularly vivid,” writes Joan Didion.

*

Once, on the other side of the bridge (Belvedere in Marin County), my boyfriend and I admire a mansion from the sidewalk (the address is on a list of homes and buildings designed by California architect Julia Morgan). Quickly, the homeowner and his dog spy us from the balcony and invite us to join them. We take in a view that encompasses Angel Island, Alcatraz, San Francisco, Sausalito, and not only the Bay Bridge but also the Golden Gate. I say little, passing the burden of small talk to my loquacious boyfriend who wouldn’t notice I was doing so, but before we leave I ask if the view ever gets old and the homeowner smiles and assures me that it never gets old.

*

One of two things I disdain about San Francisco is its wholehearted embrace of a low-wage service economy, made all the more sinister because it operates under the guise of progress and goodwill (“the sharing economy,” they insist). It is impossible to walk even a few blocks without seeing people hopping into Ubers, receiving their delivery of groceries or Pad Thai or weed, or walking dogs that don’t belong to them. The day-to-day tasks of city dwellers seem to be taken care of by those who live hours away and drive into the city for the very purpose of providing these services; those who are not even considered employees by the billion-dollar companies that rely on them.

During college, I studied abroad in Bahia, a state in northeastern Brazil where I lived with a host family for six months. Families received a small stipend for hosting students, though they largely hosted because they were somewhat well-off to begin with, not least for having a furnished room to spare. My host family spoke no English and only Portuguese, which was the point, so it took countless fragmented conversations over a period of a week to discover that at their disposal was a full-time driver, two cooks, and a woman who “cleaned.” Impressed and curious, I brought it up to one of my teachers at the language school, whose explanation was that widespread inequality had resulted in an economy so stratified that the upper class, upper-middle class, and even the middle class (my host family), were all able to afford the miserably small wages paid to the service class. So while my host family was not particularly wealthy, there were feasts served at lunch, rides to and from work, and fresh laundry folded on each of our beds several times a week.

I’m inclined to think that what I saw in Brazil resembles what I now see in San Francisco. Personal drivers are beckoned with a few taps of an app, while gourmet dinner kits are dropped off nightly. I have a dear friend who ordered a scratch post for her cat, and without even opening the box, arranged for TaskRabbit to come by the next day, open the box, and put it together (“freelance labor,” they insist). San Francisco is an expensive city, and even those who make a considerable amount of money find that there isn’t much left when over half of monthly income goes to rent. Yet here we are, an entire service staff on hand, ready to feed the illusion of privilege and wealth. It’s the sharing economy, they insist.

*

Summer is not my season, it never has been and likely never will be. As a child I relied heavily on routine, and because summer signaled the end of the school year and thus the end of a nine-months-long routine, I regarded the season nervously. As an adult I find the sun’s constant and cheerful presence to be exasperating, like that of a talkative child. The heat does not feel enveloping but oppressive. As I watch summer die and fall resurrect itself, I also start to come alive. I love effortlessly waking up before the sun; scarves as big as blankets and my alpaca coat; election season; colder days that encourage time spent in the great indoors; and above all, spending the final months of the year ensuring that goals made at the beginning of the year are accomplished. In regards to Bookswept, this fall marks eight years since the beginning. A new section on art will commence and book reviews will recommence. I also aim to take my writing beyond the comforts of this little space I’ve created. Stay tuned!

Note: Midsummer

Presidio Terrace is a small neighborhood of 36 homes built in 1905, at the time advertised as a place for only white people to reside. I’m unaware of its current genetic makeup but like any fair judge, I need only to refer to precedent to reach a sensible conclusion. Long driveways curve behind homes to unfurl unseen, and bright white security cameras sprinkle the rooftops like snow. Home after home, window displays feature antique models of ships, telescopes, flags, masks, and wooden carvings I can’t identify, revealing a certain predilection for places far from home that even a mansion can’t dissuade.

*

Tucked away at the end of a cul-de-sac is the San Francisco Columbarium & Funeral Home, built in 1898 and currently the city’s last nondenominational burial place with space left to fill. Outside are several plaques, one for an astronomer named Dorothea who “loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night,” and Julia who “rejoined her dear departed relatives on August 23, 1961.” Crisscross San Francisco just a handful of times and you will likely find yourself on Eddy, Steiner, Haight, Page, or Shattuck, streets named after famous residents who now rest on little-known Loraine Court. A rotunda with a domed skylight encases thousands of vaults like a bell jar, and upon entry one is encircled by eight columns, each with a recessed compartment to hold an urn and personal items. Only two of the eight compartments are filled, the rest bearing yellow stickers with Reserved typed in red, the reservation implying a brave admission by the not yet dead. Most urns sit alongside photos, specifically photos of dogs, a reminder that it all comes down to something not so complicated after all.

*

I’m at Golden Gate Park and edge closer to the peak of Rainbow Falls until there are flecks of water on my skin. The water roars loudly and I imagine that if I were with someone and we tried to talk, we would shout to be heard and words would be lost and that would be the fun of it, the conversation proving to be far more memorable than the perfectly audible ones. Later when I brought someone along to the very same spot the waterfall wasn’t running that day, so we exchanged words without interruption. In time I’ll likely confuse the imagined and the real, blending the two days together just enough to prove that the past like the truth is easily malleable.

*

On a long drive on a four-lane highway, cars and trucks begin to look familiar, neighbors on the road who like neighbors in my building I say nothing to despite the number of times they reappear in my orbit. On a recent drive from San Francisco to San Diego, I was accompanied by a small U-Haul truck with a firefly painted on its side alongside some trivia: “Did you know? A firefly converts chemical energy into light.” I later read that there are 2,000 species of fireflies and each species is recognized by the duration and frequency of its flashes. The dots of light that rise into the air at night are males, while the females sit comfortably down in the grass, observing, flashing an occasional light to start a conversation with a potential mate or two or three or more. With just a pen light I could talk to the fireflies myself, emit a flash to conjure up signs of life in the dark. Like seeing the windows of neighboring houses light up at night, the fireflies would offer a wordless comfort, a reminder that it all comes down to something not so complicated after all.