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.

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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.

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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.

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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.