the dharma blog

The Union Square neighborhood of San Francisco has somehow become one of my favorite parts of the city. Perhaps it is sentimentality — Rosie and I stayed at a great, funky little hotel on Sutter St. on our honeymoon a couple years ago — but I think as much as anything, it is the feeling of old San Francisco still visible, with layer upon layer of the city’s long, diverse history and residents all passing by my eyes as I wander up and down the streets.

There is a class of San Francisco gentleman that is dear to my heart and represents the “old San Francisco” that I mentioned above. They remind me of my uncle Terry, who ran a little import/export business in the city for many years. I think of Terry and I think of him wearing a beret-like hat, getting the San Francisco Chronicle every morning and reading it at his desk, reading Herb Caen (incidentally, the guy who coined the term “beatnik”) religiously. The guys who were here before the hippies, who wear a hat and now have well-trimmed white hair and maybe even a neat goatee to match. They work in this neighborhood, the city’s financial and business district, and love San Francisco more than any other place on Earth.

Maybe they are growing fewer today. Terry and my aunt Janice retired and moved to Portland a few years ago to be near their grown children and their children, though I can only imagine the feeling of loss it must have been to say goodbye to San Francisco. But at 8:00 in the morning and 5:00 in the evening, there are still a few to be seen, sometimes carrying an umbrella, always dressed well, if a little eccentrically.

The largest portion of the people crowding the district’s sidewalks are young people, my age or younger. They are students, dot-commers with more money than is perhaps good for anyone at such an age, and children of this city, and they make me wonder about how I might be different if I had grown up here on the bay rather than in Minnesota and its rivers and lakes. It doesn’t make me wish, mind you, just wonder.

They are some of the hippest of the hip. They all seem to have iPods evident and they dress in the latest styles, all of which are displayed in the windows of the shops, Louis Vuitton and Levi’s, Giorgio Armani and Christian Dior. The young women are truly beautiful, enough to break your heart, and they cross the street looking straight ahead and they’ve seen it all before.

And lastly, the other group that I notice is the old hippies. Not as much in this neighborhood, but they are here. The hippies are old and getting older. They walk stooped over now, wondering how they made it this long I guess. They grew up here or came here in the 60s and never left. Even after things changed at the end of the 60s, they must have been bound here by jobs or families or hopes or maybe just their memories. My dad could have been one of them, but he left in 1972 for a short trip home (he told everyone “I’ll be back”) and never returned except for the occasional visit.

The men and women of that era might still have their long, straight hair, but it is white now. They seem to be hiding here in this enclave of liberalism, where to some degree their revolution never died, was never defeated.

Of course, there are also plenty of homeless and impoverished on these streets. And there are the Chinese and Japanese that work in the hospitality industry or are here on a tour, or who came down from their own homes in nearby Chinatown. And there are tourists, people young and old, often couples, who make their significant others pose awkwardly for photos and who are probably enraptured by the bustle and the beauty just like me.

All this mess of humanity walks the sidewalks of this neighborhood. The streets are lined with those couture clothiers, hotels big and large (the Westin Francis and the Sir Francis Drake are both right here) and European-style cafés that I love so much, where you can get a cappuccino or a beer or a wine and drink it inside or on the sidewalk and be part of what is part of you.

This afternoon about 5:30 I walked an aimless circuit around the area, down Stockton, along Market to the end of the cable car line where the tourists are densely concentrated and so are the street performers and the Jesus-sign-holders and the guys handing out fliers about who knows what (which always makes me think about Mitch Hedberg’s line: “When someone hands you a flier, it’s like they’re saying, ‘Here, you throw this away.’”). I went back up Powell back to the square where I got a cappuccino and sat on the plaza. I read my book and occasionally looked up to where the sun was setting over the Westin Saint Francis.

Tomorrow I’m off to stay at my friends’ apartment near the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood until I leave on Monday, and that should be a great introduction to another neighborhood with a lot of character and history, and for the time being it was just good to be in one of the many hearts of San Francisco and add my own beat to its steady rhythm.