ONE : SAN FRANCISCO MEMORIES ...THE BEGINNING OF A LOVE AFFAIR
I sat in bed reading the big unruly pages of The Sunday Guardan in my tiny flat at 62 Falkner Street. There was something deeply romantic about the big pages and the smell of newsprint and the long easy Sunday’s before the world went mad. Something manageable about the news that’s now run away from us at lightening speed as we scroll tiny lit screens. The pages rustled deliciously and my eyes scanned the pages for something that i wasn’t quite sure what. Then there it was - an offer for return flights to San Francisco for £75. I needed out of this little life I was in... there wasn’t enough room to breathe and I felt too big for the story I was in. My girlfriend was grumpy, how was I going to manage that on the wages I was on, I couldn’t afford it and she couldn’t get on the bus without having a panic attack let alone a plane so it was out of the question- I wasn’t going. Something braver than the version of me I was currently living thought “you just watch me”.
I immediately picked up the phone and called my friend Anne Evans and asked her to come with me and she said YES without taking more than a breath. The next thing I remember is we were eating delicious cinnamon bagels at breakfast in a tacky hotel far away from everything we knew. Then I was subtly filling my little backpack with as many differnet varieties of bread as possible as we didn’t have money to eat during the day. Straight out of the rolling toaster and into the bag while Anne fluttered her eyes lashes and distracted people while filling her bag with butter, Nutella and jam. Future trips were much more up market, verging on the sublime and decadent. I wasn’t to know this then but I wouldn’t have to fill my bag with bagels again yet that is now the magic I remember.
Nobody had a warned us about the hills. Anne is deeply glamorous and had only brought a few different colour versions of her big high heels... my choice of sparkly flip flops were just as ridiculous. I don’t remember exactly where we went on that trip but in my mind I can see the sea of hills up and down -giant waves of streets stretching out before us. I remember very sore feet and laughing till we nearly wet ourselves- at the delicious freedom of being away from everyone and everything we knew. Eventually we abandoned shoes and embraced the barefoot look - somehow it added to the spirit of the trip and no one batted an eyelid. I don’t remember many more details ... just there was a certain feel to the air like possibility and expansiveness and a sky big enough to hold the size of my longings.
It is funny what you remember ... not any landmarks or tourist attractions just how our feet felt and the bagels and that the bad hotel was opposite a Liverpool Bar run by a fellow dreaming scouser.
There was my friend Mary Corrigan, always reverently known by her full name, who held a comforting connection across time and space ... somehow her own families dreams and longings across the ocean and mine crossed and wove this little loop into the fabric of our creative chapters. A little loop that would bring deep friendships, meetings in Wales, Greece, Iona, New York and Ireland .... more about that another time. For now I knew I’d be back. I had begun a love affair with this place.
There was some crisscross beautiful thread running between Liverpool and this faraway city .. some ancestor in me standing at the docks in Liverpool dreaming a different life with waves for streets and big big skies ...
More memories of San Francisco https://www.clarebeloved.com/podcast