My San Francisco

I parked the car on 32nd Avenue between Clement and Geary, very near the apartment building where I grew up. It had been years since the last time I'd visited this neighborhood, but I wouldn't feel like I'd shown my friend around the City if we didn't come here. Coit Tower is nice. The Golden Gate Bridge is fun to walk across. We'd do that stuff later. First, we had to see my San Francisco.

We walked the same way that I did hundreds of times in my youth, down 32nd Avenue to Clement, across the street to the grocery store (it was a Safeway back then, but now it's something different). Turning left on Clement we walked up the hill toward the park.

So many memories of this place overlay in my head as I babble on to my amused friend. This place was magic to me as a child, and even now it induces a sense of the extraordinary as we approach the playground.

The equipment I played on as a child is gone, replaced with new structures, but the basic layout of the ground is the same. I'm so relieved. When I'd checked the neighborhood out on Google Maps I'd seen the satellite photos of the construction crew. I was worried that they would completely change the hill, the contours of the playground, and the break between open play space and the dark parts of the park.

Sure, the play structures had given me hours of fun as a girl, but the real magic was where the playground turned to forest. As we walked the path toward the play structures, I took the lead, showing my friend where to go. He was unsure at first. Two adults walking along the paved sidewalk was one thing, but venturing onto the sacred territory of the playground was different. These days, people get strange about that sort of thing. I beckoned him to follow me.

He stepped up onto the mats with me. (“When I was a kid it was all sand under the monkey bars,” I explained.) He followed me past the rotating blue christmas tree, past the slide, past the climbing wall, and past the swings. We climbed up the retaining wall at the back of the park, and were in the oldest part of the playground. The old, giant swing set is gone, but the space is still there, darkened by the shady trees and filled with the whispers of elves.

I was 9 years old, at the park all by myself. There were no other kids my age there, just a couple of teenage girls dressed up like they had just come from the Renaissance Faire goofing off by the swing set under the trees. I walked straight back to the swings so that I could watch them. I'd never seen them before, but I liked them instantly. I pumped my feet and watched the two girls. One had brown hair and was dressed like a man. The other was very feminine indeed, with carrot colored hair and a flirtatious manner. I don't know how long I'd been watching them – staring, really, but they noticed.

“Hail!” Said the one dressed like a man.

“Hi.” I was a bit shy, feeling like these two were much too cool for me, but thrilled that one had actually said something to me.

“Don't mind us,” she continued, “we're just elves!”

“Oh! That's good to know!” I said, quite certain now that they were about as wonderful a pair of teenagers as could possibly exist in this little park or anywhere, “I'm a pixie!” I was, too. My mother had called me “Pixie” since I was a toddler.

“Pixie! I am glad to make your acquaintance,” she bowed with a flourish and then continued, “I am Whitewolf, and this is my companion Silvertree.”

It was the beginning of the best friendship of my young life, and the opening of a door that would never fully close. These two brought the world of imagination out of the pages of books and right into the park where I spent my afternoons. They expanded my sense of magic and awe, showed me the paths that lead deep into the park, past the golf course, along the sea cliffs, down to the water's edge and back.

All that magic, the Holt, the elves, the games in the trees, climbing precariously along the edge of paths partly washed away in the rains each winter, I wanted to bring it back, package it up, and share it as a single gift. There is no way to compress such grand fantasy into a single walk through a park, but I had to try.

I took my friend along the unmarked trails. We ignored warning signs and park rules to get to the best places. We hiked up and down, climbed through crazy plants and rocky ridges, and found ourselves at last at the edge of Sutro Baths.

We climbed up from the Baths to Point Lobos Avenue, and then walked away from the ocean back towards our car. (“We're not walking all the way back, are we?” “No. But let's eat!”) My friend complained through the last bit of hike up the hill, past Sutro Heights park, but I must admit that I lacked much sympathy. I was too wrapped up in my own adventure, a virtual reality of decades before played simultaneously with the present as I walked.

Just past Sutro Heights is a hotel that has been there for longer than I have been alive. The Seal Rock Inn Restaurant was a favorite of my father's and mine after long Sunday morning walks in those long ago days. My friend was thankful for a rest and delicious food.

As I stared out the window I wondered about my first crush, the only childhood crush I still harbor after all these years. The view was beautiful. The memories of the elves drifted past, replaced by an image of my dad and I sitting at this very table many years ago.

I looked at my friend as he ate his corned beef. We smiled at each other. It was all good. We could do the tourist thing tomorrow. Today we'd seen My San Fancisco.