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Feeling at Home in San Francisco

Posted by Stuart at 01:31 PM on December 14, 2003

I don't know what it is exactly, but there is something special about San Francisco. There is something about it that makes it feel like home to me. I felt it on my very first visit in 1997, and I feel it on my return this Christmas season.

What about the city makes me feel so comfortable and at home? Is it the fact that I have so many friends here? That is certainly part of it. Is it the beauty of the bay and the rows of victorian and modern houses built on winding hillside streets? No doubt it plays a part.

Or is it just the diversity that appeals to me so much? Last night, Kenley and I ate dinner at a small Mexican steak restaurant near his new condo in the Mission. I sat there amazed as I realized the the crowd was a microcosm of the City. There was a table of 8 gay guys who were black, caucasian, and asian. Two other tables had straight couples -- one All-American caucasian couple from the Marina and one made up of an Indian guy and a caucasian woman. At the bar, 4 Mexican guys sat with their baseball caps on backwards and drinking MGD.

We were lucky enough to sit at the window, and the street scene outside was as typically San Franciscan as the inside. People of all races walked by, many of them walking their dogs. Across the street was an old church, painted some funky orange-redish color with aqua trim and was sitting next to a few old victorians.

But what I am describing is just surface. There must be a deeper attraction. I don't know what it is, but perhaps Rupert spoke correctly and I really am home now.