So this is where I am. And where I have been since 1993/1994. I've worshipped this place since I was a kid.
I was born 16 miles east, give or take from this bridge. Alta bates hospital. Taurus sun, libra rising, and pisces moon. Including this is true evidence of my roots - more valid than a birth certificate. I am 4th generation Californian. Again - astrological reference confirms it. According to my mom I come from a line of psychics. Arriving in horse and carriage from Oklahoma, they settled a tiny, dusty, dry, blazing hot in the summer town which is still labeled with their last name - Templeton.
This is my San Francisco story. A pretty gay and proud one. Because it hasn't always been this easy. To feel a little free. To be able to walk through the world thinking about things other than how you’re seen moving through it. This start might actually be like reading the last chapter first. Maybe I’m leaving. Maybe I can’t. Maybe we just need a break. I’m looking for answers and having all the questions since pandemic life began.
If I leave - will it feel like I can’t ever go home? What does it mean to leave a place knowing that the space you’ve held onto for so long - won’t wait for you? Or may not even let you back in. This book has been helping put words to the feelings that I know so many people have. So many “San Franciscans”. Home is about belonging to yourself - right? Not a place? No matter how many memories you have here or how many decades you've loved people here?
Maybe if I start a blog it'll feel ok to write a new story. To leave this chapter.
