BE SURE TO WEAR SOME FLOWERS IN YOUR HAIR...

Hub and I were in San Francisco last week for a short Autumn getaway before the holidays and Hub's snowboard season consume us for several months.  Let me just say, I didn't leave my heart in San Francisco, but neither did I lose my mind...and that's progress.

I do not have a good relationship with the City by the Bay. My first trip there was in the early 70's and even though I dressed like a hippie, I was mostly a midwestern, blue-collar, conservative-town girl in the early throes of discovering that I was not like most of the people in my hometown (or my family), but I wasn't all the way to "peace, love, and protests" either.  I still trusted a few people over 30.  I also dealt with undiagnosed anxiety disorder, that we denigratingly referred to as "She's freaking out." On that trip I did have a bit of a "freak out". S.F. seemed overwhelming, a bit chaotic, and super scary. This is hard to admit at this stage, but was nevertheless true for me then, an innocent from Illinois. I did not like it.

We went again some years later when a friend of ours had moved to Big Sur. We drove down from our new home in the Pacific Northwest, to visit her and again I felt off-kilter and like the whole trip took place within a funhouse mirror. I recall a very weird, disheveled, nearly Zombie-looking guy jumping out in front of our car on a dark rainy street. I screamed. We didn't hit him, but sheesh. And then something about almost driving into the ocean? Whatever. I just wanted to go home.

Another time I have a vague recollection of staying at the Four Seasons and watching older Asian folks doing Tai Chi in the nearby park while Hub was attending a medical conference.  Why don't I recall anything else about that trip?  It's like my brain shuts down in S.F.

Many years later we went to a Giants game and maybe some other stuff with our young sons...I frankly don't recall much about that either other than it being a one-day visit tagged onto a different longer vacation.

And this time....well, it took me 24 hours to feel comfortable being there. First, I had taken a Dramamine before the flight which was dumb since I didn't need it and didn't realize it was only a 90 minute flight. I take it to ward off anxiety about claustrophobia/nausea/vomiting I'm convinced will befall me on flights. It's my insurance policy, but Hub was a little annoyed with me and suggested that one pukey flight almost 40 years ago really doesn't necessitate drugging myself forever, every time I fly because when I do it makes me sleepy and spacey and is also the antithesis of what I profess to be about -- see the last post in this blog. His words were a wake-up call to me to see I was using drugs in a way I don't like, so I'm going to go Cold Turkey on my next flight. But this time the deed was done and I was trying to stay awake to my surroundings the first afternoon we were there. We ended up in the heart of the Fisherman's Wharf in the most touristy area, Pier 39, which was loud, crowded, chaotic, and carnival-like. Ugh. I just wanted to go home.

The next day, though, I realized I was fighting old S.F. demons and decided to stop. This was not then.  This was now. I sat down on a bench in a quiet park, closed my eyes and told myself a new story. I was going to have fun on this trip as the grown-ass woman I am now, with decades of self-knowledge and a toolbox full of tools I could use to deal with old wounds and anxiety-fueled fantasies. Walk my talk. So from then on it was a goodish trip.

We did all the touristy things. Went back to the Wharf, walked to Coit Tower (took the Filbert Steps -- 450 of them!), walked up and down the stairs skirting curvy Lombard Street, ate Cannoli in Little Italy, explored Golden Gate Park and the S.F. Botanical Gardens, climbed the Secret Garden mosaic stairway, walked along the beach out to the end of the Municipal Pier, over Ft. Mason to the marina and Marina Green, took a ferry to Sausalito for lunch, passing close by the hulking and foreboding Alcatraz, which frankly gives me the creeps and maybe that's the bad ju-ju I feel in S.F. since you can see it from all the sites, went to Haight-Ashbury (no flowers in the hair of homeless folks living on the streets there), had a hot fudge sundae at Ghirardelli's, discovered a fabulous little coffee shop where I had the best ice cream Affagato ever, rode a cable car, and rode city buses -- always a half scary, half entertaining enterprise in any big city -- when we weren't walking, walking, walking.

It was all just....fine. Hub seemed annoyed with my slow start and my lack of enthusiasm for S.F. as cities go. (Take me to NYC!!!) We were both frustrated with "wasting" the Sausalito day since that little burg looked nothing like it did in the 70's and we found it to be uninteresting with not much to see or do, plus it was 85 degrees and little shade to be found. Even Hub admitted to being a bit cranky and out of sorts that day.  

We usually travel so well together... I guess some distance will help us appreciate the trip more because we also shared experiences in S.F. that in the re-telling to our son the other day seemed fun and funny and good. 

But, once again, I'm not back home feeling like S.F. is my "place" and that's weird because nearly every other person I know absolutely loves it. It's just that every time I'm there, something is "off" for me mentally and emotionally. This time I thought it initially was my Dramamine-induced stupor, but the friction with Hub was the thing that makes me saddest, which seemed not of either of our making, but rather some dissonant vibe that surrounded us.

Hub says he wants to go back, explore more, and maybe get outside the city (revisit Muir Woods, Marin County, Mt. Tamalpais, Bolinas) and I guess I do too. It's become a bit of a challenge for me now. I ended up feeling way more comfortable there this time in spite of the occasional weirdness. Maybe one day the place really will steal my heart.

At least, that's the view from here..©