Every now and again, I rediscover the beauty of my chosen city. A lovely day dawns and I have new eyes. As Indian Summer continues here, the flowers, somewhat confused, are opening back up.
Us residents put our fall jackets and rain gear, so recently unpacked, back in the closet, and go out in shorts and T-shirts again. The most dramatic moments of heat occur at sunset and after, when the air is still, and the pollens and other natural (and unnatural emissions of the day) begin falling back to earth.
The heat of the earth, after hours of direct sunlight, even as the sun cuts an arc far closer to the horizon than in earlier seasons, rises up to meet, ever so gently, the moist cool air drawn inward from the Pacific Ocean.
In the coastal regions, in evening time, the fog forms, and as it does so, the breezes pick up until great billowing clouds of the stuff start streaming over the hills and through the Golden Gate, sucked in by a dry land like water by a parched man, lost in the desert.
An odd peacefulness settles over the City. In the night fog, your imagination can start playing games. Thus are born many a mystery story, and many a great mystery movie, set in the Barbary Coast.
This remains a city of sailors, adventurers, drinkers, artists, protesters, dreamers, fools, dopers, poets, singers, and a large class of those who dominate most cities, i.e., the Suits. You know, the bankers, the accountants, the insurance agents. The people, mostly young men, who appear to know exactly where they are going and why.
On the other hand, in the modern era, our city has filled up with geeks and nerds, the artists of their generation. Software programmers and database engineers. English majors who write code.
It's the dot.something era. A time when text messaging is emerging as our new international language.
There are reasons that this place, which is built into an environment almost too lovely for words, has emerged as the home of the technological revolution sweeping earth.
It's because here, poets meet mathematicians. Together, we create a vision that has a better chance than any other combination to save this planet.
Patterns, numbers, colors, and sex. Think about it.
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