Forgotten Places

Lately I have been feeling a little sad, concerned about the future of San Francisco. I consider myself very lucky to live in a place that has always been considered a hot spot for the liberal, the arts, museums, and endless good coffee, teas, poetry, and music. After all Lawrence Ferlinghetti considers it his city. But recently powerful new players are moving in and the not so well off are seeing themselves leave the city they love. As a writer I am becoming apprehensive because although I may not live in San Francisco forever, I will always consider it to be my most precious of muses.

Any artist can tell you that inspiration can come from anywhere but what makes an artist an artist is taking the strange, the forgotten, the insignificant and creating something new with it. Don’t get me wrong. There are times when I want to escape the smell of piss on the sidewalk, the people pushing me on the subway without saying “excuse me” and the guys asking me for change on every corner of downtown. There are times when I’m overwhelmed with my own life and these nuances of the city don’t help at all. Even drained at times, creatively wise. That is when I know it is time to take a vacation, if I can afford it at the time.

But it is when I’m on these vacations that I suddenly realize that there is no place like home and then I start missing the fog that lulls me to sleep, my meet ups with friends at my favorite tea lounge, my ripe plantains that I can only get in the Mission that just happens to be right across the street from one of my favorite older book stores in town.

And then I start to think of forgotten places. How our environment as artists have such a big influence on how we talk—therefore how we write, the smells, the kinds of interactions we have on an everyday basis, the architecture that surrounds us, the good and the ugly and how both qualities inspire us to write. Maybe that’s the beauty about being a writer—the ability to see ugliness in beauty and beauty in the ugly.

You might say c’est la vie, but I say when you see your talented musician friends facing eviction, your favorite bookstores shut down, and all the mom and pop restaurants, including the boutiques where they know your name, close down, it makes me disheartened and angry. For there are places hidden, out of sight, maybe even a little covered in mud, mundane looking from the outside. And how many places like this have we passed by thinking it was nothing more? Never taking the time to look deeper, to open the door that might perhaps lead to a new taste of food? A new experience that may lead to a new poem?

I don’t want these mom and pop places in San Francisco to become secret doors or passageways covered in ivy, rotting away, telling us that a long time ago someone cared enough to build them, but have been long forgotten for better things, current things, things that take your time away from being curious.

Creativity can be a fickle companion at times because we have all felt as if we exhausted it. Maybe when in reality we have simply just stopped being curious. Curiosity comes from the different, from the offbeat, from the variant, not from the trending, from being and looking like everyone else. This is what alarms me. For in San Francisco you can have one corner selling mangos, and next, you might have a biker bar, and down the street there’s the knitting club, all while you are drinking South African wine and listening to Tito Puentes playing his Latin jazz.

Perhaps it is your lucky day wherever you live and you will stop riding your bicycle or car, and you will look at something that has caught your eye, and you will tilt your head, will hear it speak to you, and approach it with caution. Today might be your moment to discover something forgotten or on the verge of becoming extinct.