It’s been a while since my last business trip. As result my tolerance is high for getting up early, fighting the road warriors for an outlet at the airport, and waking up on the plane with neck pain. It feels good to be back in SF. How a Best Western in San Mateo can cost $500 a night still baffles me. But I accept it, because everything here looks unassuming and costs a fortune. It feels like a slight victory that most consumer goods are roughly the same price as their Denver counterparts. Yes, I paid $1.50 for a bottle of water!
Writing about SF is like writing about New York: why bother? It seems like it’s been done to death, and I can’t imagine that I’m going to reveal anything that wasn’t said earlier and better by Mark Twain. Instead, I focus on what it means to me. Why does it feel good? If you’re negative, you would say it’s damp. But after living in a high plains desert for half of my adult-life, I find it reinvigorating. Everything is lush and green, and even a sad-sack area like San Mateo seems beautiful when looking you’re looking at it through panoramic window lined conference rooms.
It also has an elusive “character”. In a two-block walk through the Tenderloin I saw two people shooting up, one person shatter a window to steal luggage, and three people being arrested. What decade is this? I’m not young enough to say that this is a good thing, but after two decades of gentrification, it’s at the very least baffling to someone who who’s only been to New York post it’s transformation into an adult Disneyland.
It also feels good because it feels far away. As much as I enjoy it, I know it will end in the very near future. And that helps to provide me with the distance to truly enjoy the place without judgment. It doesn’t resonate at a deep enough level that I would consider disrupting my life for this place. But I appreciate it, and bit by bit, I uncover what vibrates with me.
