Bay Area Love

Of all the places I have lived, coming to San Francisco has been the most immediately familiar. I keep running into people from my long-lost past here--not just once in a while but twice in a week, unplanned, but who else would be rummaging through the library on a Saturday early morning?

It's a long story, but I used to write to M and read his books and magazines, and his thoughts were greatly inspiring. After a weird cross-country journey we hung out, and it was so nice to share thoughts and nothing else. We've met several times in various cities and countries over the years--in Europe and New York City over the years, although most of the times we spoke we were stressed out and had no time for a meaningful conversation.

And to just run into someone and ask them questions and randomly talk about stuff levelly, it's such a nice pleasure! Maybe that's one of my favorite things of all, just sitting and talking to people. I was also very young and obsessive at the time, but meeting him helped me to discover and create a great many cool things.

It takes a long time to get past a certain comfort zone, and with some friends I've had years, so that you pass the boundary where you are acquaintances, and then when your hair turns gray you can really get to know each other.

The most favorite pleasure in the Bay Area is eating though, and nobody I've met has considered dieting. They're always talking about food here, but they're paradoxically thinner on average than the people always talking about dieting I encountered in Southern California.

The bread is as good as the bread in Germany, and I've been stuffing myself with cheese, cakes and fruits nonstop at countless dinner parties, because that's what you do when you get old and gray.

There's moderation when drinking the wine, and it shows (the moderation), because you want people to eat, not acquire that neurotic, sinewy health freak body with the veins bulging and the sun-damaged skin weathered and leathery from time.

And when your friendships grow and ripen, and you have so many common experiences in so many places, it's like harvest time. People returning to California after many years in South America, you need to have conversations that are deep and meaty, and you--well maybe it's just me, acquaintances that blossom into friendships that are going to feed you for many years to come.