Saturday, November 29, 2025

The Opposite of a Mirage

Taking a Lyft from the East Bay into San Francisco early Friday afternoon was a ghostly experience. Looking west across the bay, there was nothing to see. It was as if one of the world’s major cities had simply disappeared.

I shuddered.

As we crossed the bridge and neared landfall, a bit of the city’s familiar topography finally started to appear from the shadows. The vacancy had been a mirage, of course, or maybe the opposite of a mirage — and one I’ve experienced literally thousands of times.

San Francisco’s fog is as famous as the Golden Gate Bridge, but it still can play tricks on my mind, even after all these years. For a moment, it felt like I’d lost it, the city I love, the city where all my kids were born and three of them live.

My destination was a Mexican restaurant and lunch with those three, my youngest kids. It’s a small, colorful place a couple blocks from where the four of us lived throughout their childhood in the Mission District. We had many meals there when they were growing up but this was our first time back in a long, long time.

As we settled into our chairs and I looked into their smiling faces, the sun started breaking through the marine layer outside. I shivered for a moment — just a moment — before joining in the reunion.

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