Goodbye San Francisco

Every journey begins with a goodbye. Here's our swan song to the Bay:

Thank you, San Francisco

Thank you, San Francisco for teaching me how to ride a bike.
Thank you for your impossible hills and dainty houses;

Thank you for the honeyed light that coats your avenues at sunset
and the mist that hugs my skin at night.

Thank you for your farmers markets, Rainbow Grocery, urban gardens, pop-ups;
thank you for the guys selling pot in the park,
and the fog, like heavy cream over southern hills.

Thank you for individually brewed cups of coffee,
individually made scoops of ice cream,
individually printed t-shirts and hand-sewn grocery bags.
Thank you for your ridiculous fanaticism and your hyper-optimism--

Here’s to the freelancers who grow like mushrooms in your coffee shops,
and the homeless, attached to the walls of your buildings, just staying out of the wind.

Thank you for the Fillmore with it's Japanese squares and jazz clubs
where two excluded peoples claimed their ground in an odd embrace,
Thank you for the Mission, where the streets ripple with dance,
the ambitions of immigrants making their way.

Thank you for Dolores for Golden Gate for Stern Grove for Marin's rolling hills
for the Bay for the Bridge for the Beach and the Tower

Thank you for knowing that I couldn’t live in a city without dim sum
and for the first home I made with a man

Thank you for teaching me to like you, San Francisco,
even though it's against my New York religion,
You found your way in, mostly by mouth, but also by sheer heart

Thank you for being sunny and warmer in my memories than you actually are
and for the dream you will be
on a chill winter’s night
to the East

-Heather, July 2012, SF