Returning to my blog
I don't know if anyone will still be reading this blog, as I have not posted in over a year. I thought it might be time to put this venue back into use, for what purpose or addressing what issues, who knows?
It is, nominally, a blog about the mundane. I suppose I live in one of the more mundane spots of San Francisco, a fact in which I take great pride (tinged with spite, maybe). The Sutro Heights area, near the VA Hospital, is really not mundane at all -- at least not as mundane as the flatter, more standardized Sunset, in which I grew up and which I also love. In fact, we're mere steps from the Land's End Trail, part of the beautiful Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Yet as much as I love that area, right now my favorite part of the neighborhood is outer Clement Street, the stretch that runs from about 33rd Avenue out to 45th, right by the Lincoln Park Golf Course. In late afternoons, it's lovely to walk east or west on Clement Street, looking down the avenues on Golden Gate Park and the western half of the city. You can see nearly the entire SF coastline down to somewhere around Pacifica and the spires of various, mostly Catholic churches that rise amidst the Richmond and Sunset residential neighborhoods. For me it's a mild, mostly residential cityscape soaked in memories of my childhood, awkward adolescence, summers home from college, the wrenching and confusing years of rebuilding after my father's death, and now the last nine years here in San Francisco with Sarah and (more recently) Daisy.
Projecting my thoughts about my life and my past onto this view makes me think of past times elsewhere, and all the neighborhoods, views, and walks that were important to me in other places. I'm kind of doubtful about the prospects of an afterlife, by in my mundane way, I've tried to imagine it as a world of my favorite neighborhoods from different towns all mixed in with or right next to each other, so that I could walk from downtown Eugene right into the inner Sunset, and then over to the Nines in Ithaca, then a coffee in Isla Vista and finally back to my Richmond District apartment, outside of which I'm pushing an excited pink-and-white helmeted Daisy on her new red, yellow, and blue tricycle, just too happy -- both of us -- to be pedaling around the block at 45th and Point Lobos right before the sun goes down. I myself took years to learn how to ride a bike. (My sister, four years younger, beat me by a year, I think.) I don't know if that has anything to do with how I feel about Daisy, but as I push and steer using the weird long loop-stick think that's wedged into the back of her tricycle, I just want her to enjoy blissfully, intensely, and un-self-consciously pedalling at her own pace on three secure wheels without worrying about anything at all.
It is, nominally, a blog about the mundane. I suppose I live in one of the more mundane spots of San Francisco, a fact in which I take great pride (tinged with spite, maybe). The Sutro Heights area, near the VA Hospital, is really not mundane at all -- at least not as mundane as the flatter, more standardized Sunset, in which I grew up and which I also love. In fact, we're mere steps from the Land's End Trail, part of the beautiful Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Yet as much as I love that area, right now my favorite part of the neighborhood is outer Clement Street, the stretch that runs from about 33rd Avenue out to 45th, right by the Lincoln Park Golf Course. In late afternoons, it's lovely to walk east or west on Clement Street, looking down the avenues on Golden Gate Park and the western half of the city. You can see nearly the entire SF coastline down to somewhere around Pacifica and the spires of various, mostly Catholic churches that rise amidst the Richmond and Sunset residential neighborhoods. For me it's a mild, mostly residential cityscape soaked in memories of my childhood, awkward adolescence, summers home from college, the wrenching and confusing years of rebuilding after my father's death, and now the last nine years here in San Francisco with Sarah and (more recently) Daisy.
Projecting my thoughts about my life and my past onto this view makes me think of past times elsewhere, and all the neighborhoods, views, and walks that were important to me in other places. I'm kind of doubtful about the prospects of an afterlife, by in my mundane way, I've tried to imagine it as a world of my favorite neighborhoods from different towns all mixed in with or right next to each other, so that I could walk from downtown Eugene right into the inner Sunset, and then over to the Nines in Ithaca, then a coffee in Isla Vista and finally back to my Richmond District apartment, outside of which I'm pushing an excited pink-and-white helmeted Daisy on her new red, yellow, and blue tricycle, just too happy -- both of us -- to be pedaling around the block at 45th and Point Lobos right before the sun goes down. I myself took years to learn how to ride a bike. (My sister, four years younger, beat me by a year, I think.) I don't know if that has anything to do with how I feel about Daisy, but as I push and steer using the weird long loop-stick think that's wedged into the back of her tricycle, I just want her to enjoy blissfully, intensely, and un-self-consciously pedalling at her own pace on three secure wheels without worrying about anything at all.
posted by Mark Meritt at 7:59 PM
4 Comments:
Hm. I actually think you learned to ride before I did. But I'm continually surprised (even though I know better) about how different shared childhood memories can be among siblings. I'm also surprised about how often I'm wrong. :-)
-That sister of yours
Sam,
I have a very distinct memory (that I THINK is reliable) of us getting bikes for Christmas in like 1979 or 1980. You got a pink girl's bike, and I got a red Schwin mini 10-speed. I remember Dad taking us to the Lawton School play yard and working with us both. I also remember getting nowhere and then looking over across the yard at you and Dad, seeing you make ride the bike alone without training wheels for the first time. I gave up trying to learn and then took it up again reluctantly in the summer at Tahoe Donner, where Stephen coached me till I learned to ride. Maybe it wasn't by a year, but you definitely learned to ride first. You probably don't remember because you were so young (you must have been five, though maybe even four).
I definitely remember getting the bikes (me pink, you red, matthew blue, right?). I just assumed I was last to learn, I guess. Your account makes me think of all the discomforts (of varying degrees) of childhood. I hope it wasn't horribly traumatic.
We'll have to have lunch or coffee again soon and talk about it. Varying memories fascinate me.
-S
Hello! I loved this account. Not much else to say, just that I'm reading. It's been a while since I checked on blogs. Looks like I have good timing with yours.
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