Marin Headlands

San Francisco is an extremely accessible and varied city. On the days when I want to really embrace the city-life and get lost in the "concrete jungle" I can bike to consenting Union Square and the Financial District. Just as easily, I can walk to The Haight, Hayes Valley, and The Castro to find streets that are uniquely San Francisco, without all the commercial fuss.

And what I love most is all that is available by extension. Wake up on a Saturday morning and want to go on a hike? Just cross the Golden Gate Bridge. A mere 8 miles from my apartment is Marin Headlands. A block up Scott is Alamo Square Park. And four blocks away is the tip of Panhandle Park, which leads into the 1,017 acres of Golden Gate Park... ending at the Pacific Ocean.

A staple stop for friends and family who visit is Lands End. It is a rocky and windswept shoreline at the mouth of the Golden Gate. (With Hamilton in January 2010.)

Autumn

Yesterday could have been the day, but the bullying winds functioned as a deterrent. Thankfully, yesterday’s deterrents are today’s incentives.

I can recount the activities of past years when it’s happened—when I’ve realized that its arrival is no longer imminent… it is now. I’ve been walking out of the greenhouse of the Pickin’ Patch in Avon, CT, sprinting up and down the soccer field at Westminster School, Simsbury, CT, barreling down Country Club Dr. in Greensboro, NC with the windows down and the music up, rambling down Franklin St. in Chapel Hill, NC after a meal at Mediterranean Deli.

This year I smelled it in the breeze as I stomped a signpost in the ground outside of 1501 S. California Ave. Palo Alto, CA.

Each year the moment of realization is different—each unique to the episodes of my life.

Today marks my first California Fall.

New Accommodations

It took nearly three months of living in Santa Clara to finally get me to San Francisco. That time is an interim—a period of suspension between the eases of home with family and friends in North Carolina and the future of life in a city comforting in its unfamiliarity with one equally comforting companion. Another start at something fresh!

Here are some photos of the new neighborhood—one that invites cozy conversation, sedated strolls down Divisadero, and glimpses of a history whose relevance endures. NOPA (north of the Panhandle) is my home and I hope to guide you through my neighborhood with the photos I take and upload here.

View from Number Seven, September 25, 2009

The Painted Ladies, September 25, 2009

Alamo Square Park, September 25, 2009