07 Sep A Reflection. First arrival and SF hospitality

The Early Days.

Sitting out the front of a Vietnamese sandwich shop, munching down a delicious, Americanised equivalent of the street sandwich dished up on the footpaths of Hanoi. You notice a girl with both sides of her head shaved, the remaining hair kind of forming a comb over to one side. She is heavily pierced; one through her septim, numerous through her ears, her face her…wherever…Tattoed arms protrude out of a shirt with torn off sleaves, a skirt, black, stocking intricate and heavy black boots. She is wearing thick black rimmed glasses and is walking next to a skater/gangster looking guy, it’s funny because as she walks by you barely notice her, struggling to recall what she was wearing because even this eccentric gothic/lesbian/hipster attire pales into insignificance compared to some of the people in this city.

Shortly after this I saw my first naked man…and side walk preacher…only in America.

The people of San Francisco are generally warm, hospitable, eccentric people. Consider this. You are sitting next to a man in a bar, talking casually about where is the go-to for good coffee, he explains he runs a little café just up on fourteenth street. The next day you visit him, chatting over the free coffee he’s just made you, a girl comes up to pay for her Dragon tears tea she has just ordered. She is short, vivacious, incessant, she starts telling you about these mind controlled bunny ears she is working on…ECG sensors to the brain, reacts to peak performance, peak relaxation something something…her and her business partner (together they are known as Emoki) are striking some business deal over fancy green tea and Macbooks in a trendy café…but I digress. This short, vivacious, mind controlling bunny ear entrapeneur after hearing your story offers you a room, genuinely. “If you get stuck give us a call…”

Three days later and unable to find a hostel for the night you end up back at some random warehouse convert type thing, greeted by the very same bunny eared entrapenuer, wearing considerably less clothing. After answering the door in her towel you already feel at home…the place is organised chaos, with bikes, rugs, yoga mats, computers, ladders, paints, instruments strewn all over the front studio area. As you walk through the small hall into the living area of the house its much the same. Lots of stuff, you feel the energy, the aliveness of the house, the fact that it is inhabited by humans right in the midst of living, what ever it is they are doing. The table is littered with ideas and weed. She asks if she can get you anything, “Do you want anything, a beer, weed?” You politely decline, make up some lie about the big lunch you just ate, despite the fact you are starving.

You converse for a bit, you put yourself out there, your most creative, eccentric side first, racking your brain for all the alternate anecdotes you know, trying to repress any of that tainting cynicism. She leaves towards her room, returning dressed in a one piece tutu type thing, she’s off to do something circus related she tells you. You’re not quite sure but you don’t really care, you’re just enjoying the strangeness of it all, the spontaneity of the fact you have known this person for a handful of minutes and they’ve so openly let you into their home, into their lives. She offers you a Burning Man ticket. Makes introductions with other friends you might have something in common.

And then…in what has become true San Franciscan style, you leave that place and never hear from them again. Meet your next friend for a day, minute, bus ride…constantly moving on.