How I Got Here

My process began over forty years ago when I “met” San Francisco for the first time. I was changing planes at SFO on a flight to Spokane, Washington. When I boarded at 8:30 that July morning, Houston was 85 degrees on the way to 95, and 95 percent humidity on the way to requiring gills. As I walked out of one terminal to enter the other, the sky was clear and blue and the 62 degree temperature enveloped my body causing a great revelation: Not everywhere was like Texas in the summer! If Old English script had unfurled across the bay saying “Thou shalt be here” I could not have gotten a clearer message. I did not belong in Texas with the oppressive climate (meteorological and otherwise), I belonged in San Francisco.

I still had a year of high school to finish and then there was college. I never really planned a move on my own. But on Christmas Eve, two and a half years later, when the young man I had been dating said, “I can’t offer you the world, but how about California, let’s get married and move to San Francisco,” I didn’t hesitate.

We married in January and left for California at Easter. I’m sure many people were surprised when I didn’t return to Texas with a baby, that being the usual reason for short engagements. What I was carrying was not a child, but a dream: the same kind which has brought generations of people to this West Coast “Promised Land”. It wasn’t the prospect of gold, or even the “Summer of Love” that called to me. It was living in a place where my hungry eyes could feast on the beauty of nature without mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds feasting on me. I found very little in Texas that was picturesque enough to be worth leaving the air conditioning. And between September and May, I could leave the Bay Area and see a lot of beautiful scenery without getting all sweaty.