San Francisco is intense. Why? The freakin sunlight for one. Here the sunlight is what, more direct? brighter? clearer? I've heard the fog "cleans" the air and removes the dust particles. Whatever the case, to my eyes the sun beats down upon me and slowly drives me crazy. I am not a sunny person I guess. I mean, I like daylight like most other people, but this light seems to bore straight into my brain making me sluggish and tired. I already long for the brown hazy light of Chicago. This light here is clean, bright blue, sparkling against the pastel shades of stucco and Victorian wood siding. Chicago is brown and red and ochre. I can handle that much better.
The wilderness versus the city: Here the wilderness is embedded in the city, it is a part of the city. The parks here sprout up at the strangest places and envelop you. Once you are in you are removed from the city in a way that Chicago could never do. The parks are wild, paths go everywhere. You walk around a bend and you expect to come across some tribe of natives that has lived in the woods unnoticed until now.
The homeless, the tattoos, the bikes, the scale of architecture...all intense. I never see anyone with one tattoo. If they have any ink it is a serious endeavor, covering most of the visible skin acreage. The bikes are intense, many fixed gears and minimalist designs, then again there are a ton of cruisers and quite a few fold up bikes. But there are far more bikers here than Chicago. I suspect Portland to exceed it even more.
I did live here for 2 years, so it is not all that unexpected, just reinforced.
Next stop: Big Sur, highway 1, and the coast of California.
1 comment:
sunglasses, Andrew
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