Splash No. 154 - 20 Observations After 5 Days in San Francisco
20 Observations After 5 Days in San Francisco
I’ve remembered how much I love to talk about the weather. Everyone has their own complex lives, but regardless of our place in life, we must all endure the weather of our locality. And we can all agree that the wind is horrible and it’s much too cold for the middle of May. Because it is.
I ask the barista if she gets cold, sitting at the coffee shop window. She tells me about her many layers, how she goes to the back often, the heater that lies at her feet. But the main thing, she mentions, is that you just get used to it after a while.
There are more dogs in San Francisco than children.
I love parks so much and have visited three different ones since I got here. As I walk the paths, I often stop looking where I’m going, giddily grinning at one pup or many. I wonder if dog owners feel weird when people stare at their animals.
I hugged a friend. And sat with that friend, at arms-length, not social distancing length.
We had a picnic and didn’t have to think too much about how close things were and people are.
And it eventually got too cold to stay outside so we went home.
At another park, I watched a red-shouldered hawk fly across the clearing that we sat in, barely ten feet off the ground. No one else seemed to notice it fly right by their heads, despite it being a fairly large bird and remarkably beautiful.
I walked across a stretch of highway in Pacifica that was closed down due to landslides and repurposed into a walking trail. As I walked, the fog seemed to erase the world beyond it in a sea of soup.
Three people stood at the edge of the road, arched over tripods supporting cameras with enormous ledges, all pointed to the top of a rocky hill. A bird call resounded through the air. One of the three birdwatchers explained that a peregrine falcon nest laid atop the hill. These birds were tough to find since they often lived on precarious rocky cliffs. He told us how he’d seen baby birds go from being newly hatched fluff balls into adolescent falcons, learning to fly.
Peregrine falcons can fly at speeds up to 240 miles per hour.
It’s nice to be able to walk to most of the places you want to go to. I like to walk aimlessly sometimes, letting the traffic lights dictate where I end up. I ran into my friend the other day, and the world felt comfortably small and cozy.
I don’t remember where anything is. My poor sense of direction hasn’t gotten any better and I use Google Maps to find the park less than 3 blocks away from my apartment.
It’s not that I don’t know where it is, it’s just that I don’t trust my instincts and don’t want to end up walking in the wrong direction for a mile before I realize I’m getting further away from my destination.
I’m starting to come up with landmarks that help remind me where to go.
Everything is so different from the slowness of the suburbs, a lack of boundaries that seemed to surround everyone when cars and houses are spacious.
I’m still trying to figure out what I’ll do for food once all the frozen food my mom made runs out.
My room is still a mess because it was a mess before I left since I never bought any way to store my stuff. I rearranged the room so it’s more space-efficient, and it feels a lot better.
I still miss home, and look forward to visiting once I start to find my footing here. I still feel lost at times — completely clueless when it comes to what the city looks like these days, what people do, who is around. A lot of things haven’t changed, but a lot has and will continue to, and it’s intimidating to try and comprehend it all.
But I think that I’ll just get used to it after a while.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - may 21 - found lots of great music this month, a good amount was funk-inspired, but there's some solid electronic stuff in there as well.
ARTICLE - "It's Time For A Summer Slowdown" by Charlie Warzel - an article suggesting that offices slow everything down for the summer, as people start to recover from the pandemic and return to the things they've been missing. I'm down!
MOVIE - Ocean's Twelve (2004) - it's no Ocean's Eleven, but it's still great!
With each day, we can move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
Donate to Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta Mutual Aid Networks
Anti-racism resources
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In at least two layers,
Nikhil