Warm San Francisco Nights

It's a safe guess that most of us who've migrated here since the the Gold Rush arrived seeking one or more of the main elements of this City's mystique, which usually have included tolerance, freedom, love, diversity, radicalism, and an entrepreneurial spirit that sometimes can generate tremendous wealth. But, ever since the 1850's, many more people have failed than succeeded in this last area, which is only to state the obvious -- that few will ever become rich here, or anywhere else, for that matter.

Like other edges of the country (the Florida Keys, New Orleans, Anchorage, Honolulu), San Francisco attracts artists, outlaws, writers, itinerant musicians, comedians, misfits, and people who would never even try to articulate why they showed up, because words can't provide a suitable label.

But we all recognize each other once we arrive, as the kindred souls we are.

Even if most of us do not realize wealth here, we do have a pretty good chance of experiencing some of those other aspects of the City's offerings. Tonight, I'm thinking about love. This City has been good to lots of people, including me, seeking love.

But love, like wealth, is easily lost. So, another trait of San Francisco's is it has more bars per capita than most major cities; and my guess is that many residents have tried to drink away the loss of their dreams (wealth or love) here than other places, too. Crying in their beer, so to speak.

The martini, for example, was invented here (actually nearby, in Martinez) in the bitter aftermath of the Gold Rush, which was a long, painful bust that drove many ex-miners to drink. Maybe it is the failure to find wealth or maybe it is the loss of love, or maybe both, but the Barbary Coast tradition lives on in San Francisco, and all you have to do on a warm night like tonight is walk around the City to witness it.

Isolation is the saddest outcome of all, and that is how too many end up on the edges of our society. Your dreams did not come true, so you fall over the edge. And, in San Francisco, that means onto the streets, where we have so many homeless people, some of them perhaps just one lucky break away from achieving some version of their original dream.

My sweet friend claims that you are never alone if someone else has you in her mind. That is a comforting thought. But what happens if the person you most want to keep you in her mind decides to put you out of her mind -- if she chooses to deny that your feelings for her continue to exist? (She claims she is good at doing that, too.)

It's a warm night here in San Francisco. A good night for finding a new love? A bad night for missing someone. Summer is a romantic time, and always has been for me, a child of the frozen north. For me, the most relevant question about romance now is knowing who is keeping me in her mind, and who isn't.

That question hangs softly in the warm air over the Bay tonight; the answer in the heavy air over Biloxi...