On Leaving*

elevenbee — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 03:10:55 +0000

* More old stuff. I ran across a collection of short writing exercises I put together for a great writing workshop I took back in 2001, back when Charley and I were newly married, still childless and living in the Mission in San Francisco. We had been searching for our first home — a home with a yard for our nutty reactive puppy — for about a year, and after five unsuccessful offers had finally gone into contract on a sweet 2 bedroom bungalow in a gentrifying neighborhood in North Oakland. This was one of the daily ten-minute free-writes that we did as part of the writing class I was taking at the Writing Salon, dated 28 July 2001.

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Driving down the alley behind our apartment earlier today, I rolled by a twenty-something woman leaning against a building with a man huddled over her holding a hypodermic needle. As he flicked the needle, presumably to get rid of any potentially deadly air bubbles, I heard her mumble to her partner, Why you always staring at my pussy?

Such is life in the Mission.

I’m truly conflicted about living in the Mission. On the one hand, it’s an amazingly vibrant place, always bustling with activity. It’s one of the sunnier districts in San Francisco, and there are plenty of amazing restaurants, cafes, book stores and interesting boutique-ie shops around. But on the other hand, the scene back there in the alleyway isn’t all that uncommon.

There are tons of people who are just way down on their luck around here. My heart goes out to them, really it does, but I’m tired of having to step over human feces to get to my car in the morning. I’m tired of having to disrupt spontaneous love acts for money on my back stairs when I go to walk the dog. I’m tired of the dirt, the grime, the seediness… and maybe the sad fact is, I’m tired of having to confront such harsh levels of human degradation on a daily basis.

If I was a stronger person, maybe I would be able to see all this as a challenge to make a difference, and maybe I would be more determined to rise to that challenge. Sure, every year I make a couple hundred dollar donation to the Mission Housing Development Corporation to support the provision of more affordable housing in the neighborhood. And there was a time a while back when I was volunteering on a weekly basis, teaching English at the homeless shelter down the road. But none of that seems to have affected any immediate positive change that I can see. None of that makes it any easier for me to live here.

So it’s with my tail tucked in between my legs that I, once a vigilant, socially conscious activist, turn my back on all that that is too difficult for me to witness, and begin planning my impending move to the relative peace and quiet of North Oakland.

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Man. What would 2001 me think about 2009 me retreating to Stepfordton, even further from the grit and the grime of true city living? As it turned out, the “relative peace and quiet of North Oakland,” was still pretty rough. And expensive. And firey. So now we’re out in Pleasantville, where, luckily, we don’t have anything like that. On the other hand, I’ve traded junkies for overachieving PTA moms, and while my kids don’t have to worry about witnessing toxic illegal back-alley behavior, well… there are a whole other set of land mines out here…

Image credit: ARMAND EMAMDJOMEH from http://missionlocal.org/category/photography/

eleven bee » The Places We Live

On Leaving*