Two Years Ago, Today.

It was August 25th: the day I came to visit San Francisco. It's been two years since then. And I still haven't left.
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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 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.