Thoughts from San Fran

Writing a blog is similar to writing a diary: after a certain period of time, you either have to pound out a terse laundry list of what you’ve been doing, or simply skip ahead and fill in the holes when you have time. Today, I am choosing to do the latter.

As I write this, I’m sitting at a park bench, looking out at San Francisco Bay. Clouds stretch over the heavens like a veil of cotton, with riffs that show off the chalky sky. The Golden Gate Bridge spans the bay about a mile and a half to my left, and the white-and-silver skyline of San Francisco peeks above the evergreens to my right. Having left my sister to the mercy of LA’s smoggy metropolis yesterday, I am by myself, though not alone. 

The walk today up the bayfront and back has left me pensive, trying to process everything that’s happened the past several days. It’s hard to believe that in the past week and a half I have perched on the bow of a sailboat watching dolphins slip in and out of the crystal blue waves, walked along the glittering sand of Coronado Island, and chatted with an ex-Marine who received the purple heart and rose four times. Who knew that on this trip I would be clapping in time to the peppy music of the Fresh Beat Band, a Nickelodeon TV-show-turned-pop-concert getting ready for a tour of the US? Or witnessing the spiritual revival of a Christian who was renewing his faith in God? Or walking from Hollywood to Santa Monica through the green gardens of Beverly Hills without a map or directions, simply because Mary and I were too cheap to catch a bus? 

These memories are all jumbled in my head. I feel like I’ve been on the road for at least three weeks, even though it’s been less than two. I’m not used to traveling at such a breakneck speed. It’s been hard to get work done. It’s been hard for my thoughts to catch up. In three days, however, I’ll be reaching my place of resting after the long trip: Portland, Oregon. There I hope to recoop a bit, organize my ideas, and share some more blogs with you. In the meantime, here’s to San Francisco, the place that I am seeing through fresh eyes and a hopeful heart.

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