Honeymoon Days 15-17: San Francisco

My yin and I left Trinidad on a Wednesday morning, taking Highway 1 from Northern California all the way to Mendocino County. The road that cuts across from Hwy 101 is easily the crooked road I've ever driven, and by the time we finally made it to the ocean I was almost carsick. When we pulled over to appreciate the view of the ocean, we were promptly joined by this raven:

(or at least a crow)

Emboldened by this good omen, we continued down the coast. I was amazed to see bucolic pastures and farmhouses overlooking the rocky cliffs of the Pacific:

my yin is a superb passenger side photographer

We made it to San Francisco just before sundown, catching sight of the Golden Gate Bridge moments before the city:

Although we had plans to meet with Saylor later in the evening, the first order of business was food. My yin had a specific restaurant in mind, which serves what is – without doubt – the single greatest soup I've ever eaten in my life:

Ask for the samosa soup.

Inside I saw the most beautiful woman, eating alone under a painting of Buddhist monks carrying their begging bowls. I don't know why she moved me so deeply, but the memory of her kept rising to the surface during the rest of our time in the Bay Area:

I took this picture of her on the sly...

Eventually we made it to Saylor's place on Russian Hill, promptly went to bed, and woke the next morning to have coffee on the roof of his building:

Saylor and I

First, he took us to the Beat Museum in North Beach:

Saylor, myself, and the image of two dead men

It was better than I expected, especially with regard to its collection of foreign and first editions of Beat literature. It also had some groovy posters adorning the walls:

my yin, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso...
holding their respective businesses

We also stopped at City Lights, of course:

And I found myself walking down a small alley connecting the museum and the bookstore. I came to a corner:

And then realized I had been there once before:

failed pilgrimage to San Francisco, 2005

It was one of the most de-centering experiences of my life, almost as if my very being were dissolving into mist. I understood that the street post had not moved in the intervening years, yet I had aged and changed and remained the same all in a single breath.

But this, for the time being, is beside the point.

The point is we went to the Mission District next and walked the streets looking at murals:

my yin looking at murals

this one quotes Keats – I strongly approve

Some of the best ones, however, appeared to be unintentional, like this restaurant's advertisement. As far as I can tell, it depicts pigs butchering and cooking other pigs:

Nothing whets the appetite like thoughts of swine cannibalism...

That night my yin and I went out by ourselves, inspired by a 70mm showing of Vertigo at the Castro:

Little did we know that, in lieu of trailers, they have an organist perform before the screening:

The next day we resumed our exploits with Saylor, taking a ride out to Mount Tamalpais in Marin County and staging this wacky photograph with the help of our tripod:

this image has not been cropped

After dropping off Saylor, we spent a couple of hours visiting a friend of my yin's from grad school before finally going to Mardou's apartment near Golden Gate Park.

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Mardou, of course, inspired my first chapbook, which was illustrated by Saylor and which my yin watched unfold in real time back in 2007. In spite of this, it was my yin and Mardou's first time meeting, and although I knew we would have a blast, I had no idea how much fun it would be:

my yin singing with joy

Mardou told us that the people in San Francisco are so preoccupied with their beloved Bay that they forget about the ocean sitting right beside them. To prove her point, she drove my yin and I to the beach at sunset:

photo by Mardou

From there we went back to the Mission for dinner at Gracias Madre, which serves vegan Mexican cuisine. The food was delicious, and afterward Mardou drove us to Twin Peaks high above the city:

San Francisco at night

It was one of those nights where time seemed to dilate, and you could hear the clocks whispering to one another, "There go three souls dancing, one spirit singing..."

only known image of my yin, Mardou, and Our Lady of Guadalupe