"Can you feel the waves?" she whispered.
As a teenager I used to jog through Golden Gate Park, at a time when you wore tennis shoes instead of good jogging shoes because they were still a novelty. There was no harder run than the sprint up Strawberry Hill, in the center of Stow Lake, and there was no finer run than the one from Stanyan Street at the top of the park, all the way to the ocean and back. Jogging through Golden Gate was a natural sacrament, a unification of man and nature in the center of the city. Half-naked flower children only added to the excitement.
I grew up on the Avenues, on the western side of the city, south of Golden Gate Park. This was an area built by the Irish and the Italians and up to the early 1970s was full of wonderful old family neighborhoods. My brother James once evacuated his bowels on a neighbor’s skylight, and nearly exploded with laughter when the same Italian neighbor confided to him that the "damn cats" had crapped on his roof.
There was a richness to being able to look out a back window or stand on the roof and see the ocean reflecting a bright light that looked mysterious even to a 12-year-old. You saw cargo ships surging past the Farallonnes into the future, while immersed in the memories of distant shores. You still see them.
The Avenues were a neighborhood rooted in a sense of belonging to the City of San Francisco. You live in a city dreaming of its own future but entangled in a past too colorful to ever quite forget.
The dead are about you in San Francisco, close by. The achievements of past generations hold the present like an open palm. Past, present and future communicate in San Francisco. It is not without reason that spiritualists in this city communicate with the dead as readily with the living. "Walk-ins," or individuals who have stepped aside to let the dead speak, are commonplace. Gurus and other spiritual leaders talk about multidimensional universes as if they were next door. This is why the city is on the edge of the continent, the edge of the universe. San Francisco is never content to live in just three dimensions.
The waves of the past mingle with those of the present. This was brought home to me last week as I walked at dusk in Golden Gate Park, ambling as is my wont towards the Conservatory. A golden light was just catching the tops of the Monterey Pines and suddenly, I knew what it was all about.
San Francisco is the home of the light. Nothing could be more lovely than that illumination of the trees at sunset. If such a light is not in Paradise, then I do not want to go there. Time and gold lives in this brightness as do men, women and children. We need little else – except maybe God when this light dwells in the waves of energy that come to us from the sea.
My father used to take us to the Presidio as children. I can always remember being happy at the thought of going there. The hilly open space of the place, the stunning views of ocean and eucalyptus intertwined with the scent of wild flowers was an intoxicating mix.
There is a bluff towards the end of Washington St., that some call the Washington Bluffs, others Rob Hill, but really it has no name. There you will find one of the finest views of the Golden Gate and the Pacific to be had anywhere. I always come back to this place, carried by the waves of sun and water that extend far beyond the boundaries of the eye, and reminisce about times long gone, dreams unfulfilled and visions to be explored. An ancient Chinese couplet haunts me here:
The moon in the water resembles
the moon in the sky;
The person in the heart is
the person in front of you.
The eucalyptus- and pine-scented air fills my soul with hope and the belief that all men and women are made better by a visit to this place.
The dream of San Francisco is that humanity might live in harmony with nature, but at the same time enjoy all the benefits of civilization. I can think of no better way of both reaching out to the past and making San Francisco the city of the future, than by turning the Presidio into a center of spiritual and ecological transformation.
Call to yourself down the centuries and see if it is not here that you will return. San Francisco isn’t just a city, it is a jumping-off point to eternity. In an ocean of light, this is the place.
Sean O’Reilly is Editor at-Large of San Francisco publishing firm Travelers’ Tales.