I’m still reeling from running into an acquaintance at the Huntington in San Francisco and asking about her baby, to which she replied, “Um, baby is now 17 and getting ready for college.” I hear people as they get older say they don’t feel like they have aged and they are surprised when they pass by a mirror and see the older version. Although I’m thoroughly enjoying being 49, I still can’t get over the passage of time, like sands through the hourglass, it is moving so swiftly.
Here is T sitting on the porch of 1936 Mason, where I moved in with S and S, and met K&R who lived above me, and D&M who lived below, and the Chinese family of six that lived illegally in the basement but sent wafts of exotic food smells up the light well. D was a drummer for Translator and M was a chef. K&R were talented up and coming artists. I can remember the chill in the air in that apartment, the brick red color we painted the kitchen floor, how perfectly my butcher block table fit into the bare kitchen, and the hole by the toilet that I covered with a piece of plywood and painted black to match the black and white tiles, the view from my bed to the Marin Headlands and crying on the bed about the dress from BeBe that the salesperson snookered me into buying for my wedding. Ahhh.
I am so much more comfortable in my skin 18 years later and almost feel a motherly calm about the young girl who just didn’t know what to do back then but was doing it anyway. We ended up living there for five years and it was the first home I had ever been in that long – one of my first milestones of growing up.