**
Sitting behind him on the seat of
his bike with my legs sticking out to the sides, I held onto Ben’s waist while
he stood, peddling up the steep San Francisco hill.
“This is so easy. Oh my God this
is easy,” he said excitedly out of breath as sweat poured from him. I laughed
and cheered him on as we moved along slowly. Andrew rode his bike ahead of us,
a quiet contrast to the huffing and puffing of Ben and the cheering and
laughing from me.
Ben and Andrew were the only two people in San Francisco I knew. I had come to help Andrew explore and adjust to the city. He had been one of my best friends in college and when he graduated and moved to SF, he hid in his little one bedroom apartment on Friday nights drinking wine, alone.
Ben and Andrew were the only two people in San Francisco I knew. I had come to help Andrew explore and adjust to the city. He had been one of my best friends in college and when he graduated and moved to SF, he hid in his little one bedroom apartment on Friday nights drinking wine, alone.
Ben was also a friend of mine from
college. He lost his design job right before I moved out to the city, so I was
going to sublet his room for the two months I planned to be there while he went
back to Alabama to regain his footing.
The day I arrived, I spent the
evening with them, exploring and hopping around a small section of the city. A
few months earlier I had called Ben and asked him to befriend Andrew. They
immediately struck up a bromance that regularly involved whisky and bike rides.
Ben and I rode his bike only because
he had been bragging about the new gear he added, which would make it nearly
effortless to tackle the hills of the city.
“Can it get two people up a hill?”
I asked as a challenge.
“Oh definitely,” Ben said proudly,
his handlebar mustache curling up with his smile. “Hop on. Let’s ride.”
We rode to a corner convenience
store and picked up a few tallboys of PBR. The summer evening was mild and the
sky was clear. When I think back on that night, I’m surprised at how quiet it
was, at how empty the city seemed. But maybe that’s just how I remember it:
empty, quiet, beautiful and ready. Even the park we went to was empty. It was
all ours. We climbed to the top of the hill and sat down, the three of us side
by side in the grass. Andrew cracked open his can of beer, keeping it in the
brown, paper bag. It hissed as he pulled open the tab. He took a gulp and then silently
passed it to me while ben talked on about something I don’t remember now.
I believe passionately. I believe in the things so many of us are
afraid to believe in. I believe in moments of Fate, in the eerie reality of
Karma, in a good and loving God, in People- despite our many failures. And, looking
back on that night, I realize I also believe in the fairy-tale idea of love at first sight. I
believe in it because it happened to me in that park, on that cool August
night.
Car headlights pored over The Bay Bridge into the city. An
orange glow hung above the buildings of downtown. A light breeze tousled the
leaves of the palm trees in the park, a barge moved slowly through the dark
water of the bay, under a clear sky full of glittering stars.
From the cool grass at the top of the Dolores Park hill, I
looked out over the lit-up cityscape, out over the moonlit grass, and I fell in
love with San Francisco.
Maybe
that was the night I gave up my hold on all those frantic plans I had made,
putting my timeline and expectations aside. Maybe that was when I walked away
from what I wanted and tumbled into a life of what I unknowingly and
desperately needed. But, that’s the kind of thing love makes you do.
