“City Views & Inner Landscapes”

Waking Point

by Helen Noakes

“I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on joy!”

—by Louise Bogan

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—(Weekly Hubris)—5/10/10—Because of the weather, the walk I took on my birthday was through SF MOMA. I was specifically interested in seeing the new Klee acquisitions, and the photography collection. As we were leaving, I told my artist friend, Barbara Burghart, that I felt as though I’d just indulged in the most delicious dessert—without the calories.

This feeling is familiar but rare, something that would be impossible to sustain for long periods of time, and rightly so. Lengthy exposure to this heightened sense of satiety, of having experienced something almost perfect, would render the extraordinary feeling ordinary. It is an aspect of joy, as pure and undiluted as it gets.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t seek it out. One such experience a day should be de rigeur, a necessity of living a sane and complete life. But I, like most of us, forget.

Life rushes in with its demands. And, often, when I find myself setting aside a walk I need to take in order to fulfill an unexpected demand, a responsibility, I think of Robert Frost’s, “The woods are lovely, dark and deep/But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep . . .” And I wonder at the need to walk, to imbibe a landscape, to taste the salt-sprayed wind along the ocean’s shore, to see art, to hear music, or experience a performance, to read an exquisitely written book. Sometimes, it’s as urgent a demand as breathing, and as necessary. At those times I alter Frost’s words and think: “And miles to go before I wake.” For it is an awakening, this engagement with the remarkable elements of life.

It was because of this necessity that, the next day, despite the occasional shower and the cumulus-laden skies, I went to Marine Drive, the road which leads to the San Francisco foothold of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Weaving my way through the verdant Presidio, I steered through a sudden burst of rain to the water’s edge and looked up at “The” Bridge. To make the occasion even more perfect, the sounds of Yoyo Ma and Emanuel Ax performing one of Johannes Brahms’ Sonatas for Cello and Piano filled my windblown car, and I was compelled to pull out my little notebook to draw and to write.

The words describe the sketch:

Marin Headlands, verdant behind the bridge.

A muscular cliff face topped with a crown of impossibly thriving pines.

Colors of green—shades from forest to sun-bleached tan.

The luminous grey-green waters heaving with the driving rain.

White froth waves slamming the concrete footprints of the russet towers:

Bridge Russet—the real color of San Francisco, strong yet subtle statement against water, earth, sky.

This is our peaceful bridge, beloved of many, from lovers to jumpers.

This is our logo, our voice and our dream.

The other bridge—The Bay Bridge—always the other bridge—grey, crumbling, grimy, overworked, fume-laden, traffic jam haven, bridge “of the broad shoulders” (forgive me, Carl Sandberg), the necessary ugly cousin to this graceful beauty quivering almost imperceptibly in the wind.

The Bay Bridge has no jumpers, no lovers, no charm of sight or place, but it has a job to do and, sometimes, when the night falls black and clear along the Bay, it glimmers with the lights that, at a distance, lend a touch of enchantment. Like so much in every city, they lose their charm close up. The Bay Bridge, like the city, shows its strain.

San Francisco, like all aging beauties, has good bones . . . despite the many who pick at it, who take without giving. The city has prostituted herself—a victim of big business and big government pimps who sell and bargain her away.

Old and tired she may be, but she wears the ocean and the Bay well. They’ve left her parks alone, the Presidio and Golden Gate, Dolores and others. Some of the old neighborhoods still retain their charm. The Victorians, decked out not only for tourists but for the rest of us who live here and can’t afford them, sparkle in brilliant fairytale-book colors.

I remember when this city was a lady, gracious and elegant. When street musicians performed everything from Scott Joplin to J. S. Bach—a harpsichord set up in Maiden Lane was played soulfully by a young man with long blond locks wearing a tuxedo, tapping his Reebock-shod feet to the beat of a Bach cantata. A string quartet on Union Square in evening clothes, parkas draped over the backs of cheap metal folding chairs, emoted through Vivaldi on a summer’s eve. Mark Twain wasn’t exaggerating: they needed those parkas. It was July, after all!

Down Geary, in front of A.C.T., The Baker Street Irregulars jammed through the amazing riffs of very cool jazz. There was something for everyone in this city. There still is, but not with as much class.

Yes, I know I sound like an old timer reminiscing over the good old days, and they were good, filled with charm and delights—but these are good days, too. This city knows how to seduce, and there are days when she flirts with impunity.

There are memories on every street, not all of them of the Dashiell Hammett variety and some of them best forgotten. But, when the sun shines, the gulls cry overhead, and the city sparkles, I remember that I love this old tart, my city, my San Francisco.

It was spitting with rain. The surfers were catching waves at the foot of “The” Bridge, the same waves that were crashing at the rocks along Marine Blvd. I begged pardon of Messieurs Ma and Ax, but I had to get out there, to get wet.