How to Move to San Francisco
First, abandon everyone you know and love. Say goodbye to friends, lovers, would-be lovers, Kiwi colloquialisms, and sanity. You don't need these thing in San Francisco. You need almost-isolation. You need displacement and jet lag and noisy streets. You need Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. You need Friday and Saturday nights writing in the moleskin your father gave you. You need teary-eyed mornings. This is the required suffering. And this is only for starters.
You come to San Francisco to work. That's the plan. Just to work, not too hard and not at anything in particular. Not in anything that enthrals you. Even so, you come to San Francisco to be a writer. You are a writer. Say this while looking in the mirror, and say it when you're not invited out, or when you are. Say this when you are doing your best to find a job.
You are young. You are young and a woman and brand new. Not new like a baby, but new like an untested product or fresh linen.
On your first mornings in the city that is not Auckland, you devise some mental to-do lists for your new life and visualise your imminent happiness and sadness. When you go into a Mission coffee shop, you hear people say things like, "Yeah, I wrote a short story about it." Mock them silently while writing a short story about your last relationship that you tentatively title "Not Right Now, But Always."
Sometimes you remove yourself from social distractions for a while. Sometimes it's not a choice. In the end, it's not a choice.
You write fictional stories about lesbianism and homelessness and drowning. You put them in a drawer and worry your genius has withered on the vine. So you repeat multiple-choice sentiments so you don't have to think of your own. You begin to think maybe you don't have your own.
It scares you that you're not scared. Regardless, you're still convinced everyone is laughing at you. You don't feel local but you trick yourself sometimes.
You speak to your parents on the phone and let them know that you're fine, mostly because you are.
You've been in San Francisco for a week. Some general observations you make:
Everyone is gay.
Everyone is green.
Everything is too expensive.
Everyone must broadcast every high and hide every low.
You cruise 24th and The Mission feeling personally responsible for the creeping gentrification of the Hispanic district. You're sorry and you're not sure why. You're sorry but you're inspired by their tenacity. Amazed by the murals and political graffiti and buzzing community centres.
You ignore cat-callers and litter and homeless people and vandalism.
You make friends, easily. They tell you that you're smart and interesting.
The city smells, and when you come home you smell of the city - but you've come home.
You come to San Francisco to work. That's the plan. Just to work, not too hard and not at anything in particular. Not in anything that enthrals you. Even so, you come to San Francisco to be a writer. You are a writer. Say this while looking in the mirror, and say it when you're not invited out, or when you are. Say this when you are doing your best to find a job.
You are young. You are young and a woman and brand new. Not new like a baby, but new like an untested product or fresh linen.
On your first mornings in the city that is not Auckland, you devise some mental to-do lists for your new life and visualise your imminent happiness and sadness. When you go into a Mission coffee shop, you hear people say things like, "Yeah, I wrote a short story about it." Mock them silently while writing a short story about your last relationship that you tentatively title "Not Right Now, But Always."
Sometimes you remove yourself from social distractions for a while. Sometimes it's not a choice. In the end, it's not a choice.
You write fictional stories about lesbianism and homelessness and drowning. You put them in a drawer and worry your genius has withered on the vine. So you repeat multiple-choice sentiments so you don't have to think of your own. You begin to think maybe you don't have your own.
It scares you that you're not scared. Regardless, you're still convinced everyone is laughing at you. You don't feel local but you trick yourself sometimes.
You speak to your parents on the phone and let them know that you're fine, mostly because you are.
You've been in San Francisco for a week. Some general observations you make:
Everyone is gay.
Everyone is green.
Everything is too expensive.
Everyone must broadcast every high and hide every low.
You cruise 24th and The Mission feeling personally responsible for the creeping gentrification of the Hispanic district. You're sorry and you're not sure why. You're sorry but you're inspired by their tenacity. Amazed by the murals and political graffiti and buzzing community centres.
You ignore cat-callers and litter and homeless people and vandalism.
You make friends, easily. They tell you that you're smart and interesting.
The city smells, and when you come home you smell of the city - but you've come home.
24th and Mission, 5:00pm
Mid-sneer outside St Francis Fountain
"Free La Mission" - Hispanic resistance to gentrification
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