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THERE WAS NO LONGER A SUSPENSION BRIDGE OF BRIGHT, RUST ORANGE, temperate highs of 65 and strolls along the cloudy or sunny Bay. No uphill both ways or days of Union to Columbus (“Christopho Columbo”) to Kearny to Market, Market to Third. The 71, 49, 6, 45, 30 — all one less passenger. No Tuk Tuk Thai dining on tom kha gai, Citrus Club noodles, North Beach pizza pies. SoMa and NoMa, MoMA and BART, and the Market on Embarcadero, Piers 1 through whatever, Fisherman’s Nightmare (or Wharf), love in Haight, pushing through Powell—gone. Gone. Gone.

I stood in line with a giant suitcase of my summer: New clothing, hand-me-downs, souvenirs, and rolled laundry still wet from the prior evening’s wash. My life was seventeen pounds overweight. I spewed the belongings over the sidewalk outside the airport in despair, as though to hold on, as though to cling to those last moments in the San Francisco air before going through security, and the insecurities of leaving.

Now this, North Dakota and Minnesota—this bittersweet hello. No question I cannot take these values from my mind of the state I was raised, though question enough if I’ll stay here too long.

It took me six days to get to California. It took me five hours to get home. Time works unfairly, I’ll maintain until I go back. The next year will hold the millstones of working toward returning to the Bay, and I’m keeping this chin up all the way.

WE’RE WAITING AT THE BUS STOP FOR THE 22 when you lean in to grab my hand. To the left, the street builds to a hill and disappears into the sky. Everyone around us is ready for something, work or life or sleep, pressing play on another city day. I sense that there is something different about my day than theirs, that I am going to continue smiling long after I step off the 22 or even the 41 at Stockton and Columbus. The bus drops you at Market. Now people swirl around and alone, I put my hands in my pockets and nervously fiddle with the transfer slip that brought me to the present moment. I smile anyway, and look forward. Washington Square is full of Chinese men and women doing their dance, dogs and owners, lovers and lovers. To everyone, something. Me? I have you. No more waiting.

Calm and loud were the sounds of the wheels on steel as they traced the hills, and I walked. I recall a day when you said you’d pick up no matter what, and I wonder: As I walk these hills, have you thought I might be thinking of you? Distant, perhaps some Sunday in the future where we lay ourselves on the spots of sunshine that speckle the living room floor and take the best, the best sleep in the world, we might regain our alliance. For with all of the up and downtown days, I keep your nature with me even in the wind, even when we’re snowed in, even when I’m gone walking hills. My thoughts exactly: Thank you, for keeping my glass full and my mind sharp, delegating me a hit of hit-or-miss, for the fields and the meals and quality kindness, the showers of reassurance, you’ll get there someday! I climbed and contemplated going home—home home—but no, I can’t abandon this sweep of certainties, of spontaneity, of sudden surges of appreciation. And then I…I call…no answer, and I’m certain you’ve already fallen asleep.

Today has been utterly wonderful—
I’m so thankful for everything and everyone I have here.

LATELY DAYS, I’ve contained the evidence that our relationship is dusty. It’s almost time to put away, to trundle beneath the same staircase by which it came. Life is climbing in a different direction.

Tonight I had my first Digital Photo II Class at RayKo, the studio where I’m currently interning. RayKo offers a range of classes that are open to the public, anything from darkroom courses to shooting and processing iPhone photos. Through my internship this summer I’m lucky enough to take three of their classes free of charge (the classes are hundreds of dollars each, so it’s an amazing deal). In addition to the Digital Photo II, I’m taking a studio lighting class in mid-August and a digital printing course to learn how to actually print my stuff. Which would be nice. I’m also helping an instructor with a class on Saturday, which might offer more information.

For the longest time I’ve been shooting just to shoot without thinking about any of the logistics of it. I wouldn’t give a second thought to dumping my digital images on my computer and butchering them in Photoshop without considering color depth, histograms, and clipping (among other things). I feel like a fool for messing with JPG’s so much when I could have pushed an image’s quality to great heights with RAW. Now I know, and I’m learning! Learning feels so nice.

My first assignment for the class is to shoot a self-portrait (something I’ve always loved the challenge of) and a portrait. Sounds simple enough, but it’s terrifying. I’m going to try not to think of it too much—when it comes naturally I find, it’s not as painful.

As far as photo goes, I really feel that things are going to pick up from here…

I KNEW I’D GONE THERE FOR A REASON. Of all the places I could have made my evening, there was a directional force that had drawn me to that particular corner. Be it timing or luck, swift happenstance, or perfect chance—it happened. They walked in bone-tired and swung their lives three feet away, enough for me to make room to make them friends. Vindication.

Now life feels, that it’s all happening with reason.

ON MONTGOMERY, tw0-thirty a.m.
I’m staring straight, at the back of a bald man’s head as he argues with the bus driver about her income, wondering what he looked like in high school. The camera flashes. I look down at my high heels and think of all the events that led me here, to and with strangers. We exit as the driver howls, I’ll show you my W-2’s! You’ll see what I make! and suddenly

There, All-Star Café, dead night. It was nothing but dirt and heathens, bar scum. We enter and just as, two musicians catch our eye. They’d played at Powell and Market and all over underground to make it day by day, they’d give girls “the look” to make a dollar, but they really didn’t care. I didn’t care, they weren’t all attractive and such, we scurried on. Linked arm in arm, dispensing the night’s highlights and musings, the never-again’s—and I agreed, it would never happen again.

Such as the night would move on, I could never fixate. It was a strong drink and a strong drink, a flashback to strolling up the street in heels, privileged white female, rough part of town, and young men spitting across the sidewalk just before my passing. Friday, Friday and it wasn’t what anyone wanted so I

Kept on. Then look on at 10 a.m., through disaster, chin up and walk. Saturday morning with all in their jeans and there was the burst of shame, last night’s everything, walk like a lady. And I did, and stares, and a black man in a wheelchair on the sidewalk saying, now that’s a woman! That’s a woman! But she wasn’t. She was

Not going to pretend that’s what I do, because I don’t. And on Montgomery, through the arguing and laughter, the only woman not wearing rouge lipstick and speaking Spanish, whose legs were coated in black tights, the only woman who was scared—that was me.

EVEN WHEN ALL IS IN YOUR FAVOR, left and right are justified, skies are blue, food tastes unquestionably delicious, the roof over your head contains no leaks, fibers on your back are clean and soft, locale is distant, vast, unforgettable, and ventures so wholesome as to make you feel formiddable…

Is it what you really want?

All the pulses of the world,
Falling in they beat for us, with the Western movement beat,
Holding single or together, steady moving to the front, all for us,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

Coastal San Francisco
07.03.10