My Village

One of many things I love about San Francisco is its walkability, bikeability, bussability. I appreciate my car when it’s time for the weekly grocery shopping with four heavy bags to tote, when it’s raining heavily, when going to a nighttime concert or movie. But most of my daily life is not only entirely possible walking, biking or bussing, but genuinely pleasurable. When I have an errand to do, the need to get something marries the need for daily exercise— not in a gym but out in the fresh air. So the practical errand and the cardiovascular workout are intertwined and also joined with being outdoors, enjoying the hustle and bustle of others out on the street or in the park and taking time to notice the houses (especially now in all their festive decorations), the crows and songbirds and occasionally coyotes.

 

So yesterday, my wife needed to pick up some books at the library and I needed to pick up a spiral-bound of my newest book at Kinkos. I planned a route through the Haight and Upper Haight, my old haunts before moving to the Inner Sunset. The sun was out for a brief interlude between the rains and as we walked, I spontaneously began commenting on the various businesses and houses we passed. Here was the Other Café where we heard great comedy (now the Crepevine), there was Rivendell School (now Cole Hardware) where I taught music for a year and was about to go fulltime before The San Francisco School snatched me up. Here is Zazie’s where the Men’s Group had an annual December dinner before we realized we could cook as well and at 1/10^th the price and we began a new potluck tradition. Here is the house where our midwife Judith lived that delivered Kerala. 

The Australian Aboriginals have a fascinating practice of walking the “Songlines.” In a culture in which the land and all things are sacred, a walk through the outback is a journey following the footprints of the Ancestors, singing to life each detail that contains both practical and mythological/spiritual information. Likewise, their paintings and dances are maps of the landscape. A walk is never a casual stroll through something external called “Nature,” but an intimate and intricate connection with the very foundation of their collective being. 

 

It's a stretch to connect my little walk through the Haight with something so highly developed as the Songlines, but I could feel a little echo of the sense that we weren’t just walking past houses on random streets but reliving significant parts of our lives and invoking our immediate “ancestors” who have been such an integral part of it all. Up we went on Belvedere St., sight of many memorable Halloween celebrations shared with the foreign Orff Interns we had hosted. Past alum student Artemis Anderson and her Mom’s Marcia’s house, both of whom we haven’t seen in a long time. Up the steps to Upper Terrace, past the Glanville’s house where Julia (another SFS student) lived and who had just come (now in her 50’s) to our recent caroling party. There was Dennis Aftergut and Caroline Muther’s house where I played a solo piano house concert as a school Auction item. And there was 1519 Masonic, where we lived for two years and our daughter Kerala was born. Down past 247 Downey St. where I lived for two years with my sister and brother-in-law in 1974-5, a two-bedroom apartment with a marvelous view that costs $125 a month split three ways!! Down to Haight Street, past the old Haight Ashbury Music Center (originally called Chickens That Sing Music) where I bought many needed instruments (and now is Gus’s Grocery), on to the library on Page Street where old college friend Peter lived across the street in an apartment without heat, down past 410 Shrader St., my very first apartment in San Francisco a half a block from the Panhandle, shared with roommate Andy who I haven’t seen hide nor hair of for the past 50 years. 

 

There was more, but you get the idea. When you live in a place a long time, the landscape is alive with a past that still sings on into the present. You stroll through all the selves you have been, some almost unrecognizable, others delightfully familiar. Your little village in a bigger city feels like a community, both in the living past and living present. How often I pass people I know or have known out on the street and stop for a brief chat.  Often school alum kids or parents and then the mandatory selfie to send to the school archives. It gives a warmth and a sense of meaning to life in the city that I value. 

 

And at this time of year, where cards still come through the door and others through the e-mail, it feels just right to pause and remember. Where we have been, who we have been with, catch up on the news and surrounded by our forever community of family and friends, prepare to take the next step into the New Year. 

On this Christmas morning, our first without any kids or grandkids present, we are content to feel the presence of all those we have shared the Season with. May you enjoy the same, be they by your side or present in your memory. Merry Christmas!