Mini-vacay
I haven't even written about my Christmas vacation yet – in fact, have not yet unpacked from it, either – and here I go, taking off on another little trip again. So unlike me! And yet, so very wonderful, and very much appreciated.
Mr. A is teaching a course for his professional organization all next week in San Francisco, and even though it's less than an hour from where we live, they're putting him up in a hotel – so I'm going along with him for a few days. Check-in is tomorrow and the course starts first thing Sunday morning, so while he's doing his thing for work, I have the entire city to myself from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday morning.
It's funny – we really are so close – only about 35 miles from our driveway to the toll plaza on the Golden Gate bridge – and yet I hardly ever go into the city for any reason. Maybe twice a year I'll spend an afternoon at some music or art fest, or have dinner with some friend who's in town on business. I'm just not much of a city person, I suppose – or maybe I'm just not accustomed to all the traffic, noise and chaotic activity. Most nerve-wracking of all is driving and parking. I live in a town of less than 10,000 people and am not used to driving as aggressively as you have to when there are upwards of a million other people around, all trying to shove you out of their way.
Luckily, on this trip I won't have to drive at all. For fifteen bucks you can get a three-day transit pass, and even though the residents of San Francisco seem to have nothing but complaints about MUNI, to me it's a huge pleasure to be able to go anywhere I want to go in the city without having to navigate, drive or park. I have my whole weekend mapped out, and I can't wait.
Thinking about cities ... Living in the country on the outskirts of a very small town, most of what I see and experience from day to day is at most maybe half created by people, and the rest is just nature. Trees, plants, birds, animals, mountains, sky, water – nobody put any of this there. In a city those things are available as well, but they're (to me) totally dwarfed out of all proportion by the vast preponderance of things that people have made. Buildings, streets, cars, sidewalks, traffic signals, machines, products, products, products – not to mention the people themselves ...
Cities are all about people and what people can do. It's a fascinating kind of space to be in when you're not used to it. For instance, social, political and especially environmental problems make a lot more sense to me when I'm in a city – it seems natural that problems like this will arise when most of the people who make the rules spend all their time in an environment that insists people are the center of all meaning in the world. Whereas in a redwood forest, for example, it quickly becomes obvious that it's not all about me – I (a person) am only one small part of a much bigger picture – there are millions upon millions of other kinds of beings around who are also alive and aware and want to feel good and enjoy their time here.
Of course these beings are also around in cities – it's just harder to remember them because almost everything you see is something that a person has made. Not that that's a bad thing. Just that it's so limited – despite the iPhone and other marvels of human invention, we are still so limited. I somehow feel more secure when I can feel myself as part of a larger and more diverse context.
But hmm. Maybe the more interesting challenge is to learn to recognize myself as being in that context wherever I am – in the forest, in my bed with my new heated mattress pad (ohmygod, it's wonderful!), in an office, wrapped in a stained sleeping bag and sitting on the beach with a black-whiskered friend and a bag full of sandwiches, or walking down Mission Street with car exhaust and stinky people and mysterious substances on the sidewalk and all that beautiful, beautiful art and humanity all around me.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to power-loading some intensive human energy over the next couple of days and bringing it home with me to the country and seeing what I can make out of it. I'm finally going to check out the de Young Museum, which I haven't seen since it re-opened, and go very early on Sunday morning to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park – I love it there. There are several restaurants on my list of favorite old places to revisit, and some galleries, and the church at the Mission Delores (I used to love to sit in there when I lived in SF) and all manner of public art installations to check out, as well as Chinatown of course. Mainly, I plan to spend a lot of time just walking around and looking at things in various parts of the city, hopefully taking some pictures (still need to pick a new camera) and definitely taking lots of mental notes. I love it that San Francisco is small enough to do this. Maybe I'll walk all the way across the city, from our hotel downtown and out to the beach! I haven't done that since probably 1989.
Happy MLK Jr. Day to all. What are you going to be doing?
Mr. A is teaching a course for his professional organization all next week in San Francisco, and even though it's less than an hour from where we live, they're putting him up in a hotel – so I'm going along with him for a few days. Check-in is tomorrow and the course starts first thing Sunday morning, so while he's doing his thing for work, I have the entire city to myself from Saturday afternoon until Tuesday morning.
It's funny – we really are so close – only about 35 miles from our driveway to the toll plaza on the Golden Gate bridge – and yet I hardly ever go into the city for any reason. Maybe twice a year I'll spend an afternoon at some music or art fest, or have dinner with some friend who's in town on business. I'm just not much of a city person, I suppose – or maybe I'm just not accustomed to all the traffic, noise and chaotic activity. Most nerve-wracking of all is driving and parking. I live in a town of less than 10,000 people and am not used to driving as aggressively as you have to when there are upwards of a million other people around, all trying to shove you out of their way.
Luckily, on this trip I won't have to drive at all. For fifteen bucks you can get a three-day transit pass, and even though the residents of San Francisco seem to have nothing but complaints about MUNI, to me it's a huge pleasure to be able to go anywhere I want to go in the city without having to navigate, drive or park. I have my whole weekend mapped out, and I can't wait.
Thinking about cities ... Living in the country on the outskirts of a very small town, most of what I see and experience from day to day is at most maybe half created by people, and the rest is just nature. Trees, plants, birds, animals, mountains, sky, water – nobody put any of this there. In a city those things are available as well, but they're (to me) totally dwarfed out of all proportion by the vast preponderance of things that people have made. Buildings, streets, cars, sidewalks, traffic signals, machines, products, products, products – not to mention the people themselves ...
Cities are all about people and what people can do. It's a fascinating kind of space to be in when you're not used to it. For instance, social, political and especially environmental problems make a lot more sense to me when I'm in a city – it seems natural that problems like this will arise when most of the people who make the rules spend all their time in an environment that insists people are the center of all meaning in the world. Whereas in a redwood forest, for example, it quickly becomes obvious that it's not all about me – I (a person) am only one small part of a much bigger picture – there are millions upon millions of other kinds of beings around who are also alive and aware and want to feel good and enjoy their time here.
Of course these beings are also around in cities – it's just harder to remember them because almost everything you see is something that a person has made. Not that that's a bad thing. Just that it's so limited – despite the iPhone and other marvels of human invention, we are still so limited. I somehow feel more secure when I can feel myself as part of a larger and more diverse context.
But hmm. Maybe the more interesting challenge is to learn to recognize myself as being in that context wherever I am – in the forest, in my bed with my new heated mattress pad (ohmygod, it's wonderful!), in an office, wrapped in a stained sleeping bag and sitting on the beach with a black-whiskered friend and a bag full of sandwiches, or walking down Mission Street with car exhaust and stinky people and mysterious substances on the sidewalk and all that beautiful, beautiful art and humanity all around me.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to power-loading some intensive human energy over the next couple of days and bringing it home with me to the country and seeing what I can make out of it. I'm finally going to check out the de Young Museum, which I haven't seen since it re-opened, and go very early on Sunday morning to the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park – I love it there. There are several restaurants on my list of favorite old places to revisit, and some galleries, and the church at the Mission Delores (I used to love to sit in there when I lived in SF) and all manner of public art installations to check out, as well as Chinatown of course. Mainly, I plan to spend a lot of time just walking around and looking at things in various parts of the city, hopefully taking some pictures (still need to pick a new camera) and definitely taking lots of mental notes. I love it that San Francisco is small enough to do this. Maybe I'll walk all the way across the city, from our hotel downtown and out to the beach! I haven't done that since probably 1989.
Happy MLK Jr. Day to all. What are you going to be doing?
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