My Commute
(Feb 1, 2007)
I’ve always said one of the reasons I need to be on a coast is because I love the water and can’t stand being land locked. Then people point out – you don’t live on the beach, you can’t see it from where you are, and you don’t go all that often. All that is true – but for me that never really mattered. Knowing it was there was always good enough for me.
But now, another one of the randomly wonderful aspects of my work is, it’s on the Embarcadero, right across from the water. I ride the train right under the Bay Bridge and along the marina every morning. I take this for granted. I know that because I’d been doing this routine for about 5 months before it really dawned on me just how perfect this situation was. This was my ideal. Boiled down, this was one of the reasons why I moved back to California (although I knew I should never have left!), and into San Francisco. To be in such a perfect city.
So I’ve been trying to really focus on how lucky I am every morning, when my cross-city commute takes me through some of the most beautiful (non-vacation) landscape ever. I see a picturesque downtown as I walk to the metro every morning – the highrises, the amazing architecture, even the americorp building. Then when my train pops up from underground on the Embarcadero I go right by one of my coolest sculptures ever – a crazy huge bow and arrow made to look like it’s crashing into the ground. Then there’s the bridge, the mini-park, the boats parked in the marina, the palm trees.
Today as I thought about it all, I actually got a little teary-eyed. I am SO lucky. And sometimes I don’t live in the moment enough to really taste that. I have the most amazing job, at the most unbelievably cool company - which I randomly fell into before I could even realize what an opportunity it was. I live somewhere that I’m actually excited about and proud of (if you can be proud of a place you live). It’s been a long time since I felt that way.
I think some people just have places written on their hearts. Since I didn’t like Colorado, it was really hard for me to understand how people could be so in love with it. But I can’t judge them if that’s where they feel drawn to be. All I knew was I just didn’t have “that feeling” about it. (my anchors – who had been gone from CO for a while – once said that they just couldn’t stay away. I remember thinking, “are you kidding me? Whenever I go visit somewhere else, I cry when I have to get on the plane to come back here!” And I really did cry.)
Now I have the “feeling” again – and I don’t expect it to be the last time I do. There are a lot of cities out there with a lot to offer, and I plan to live in a lot of them. For now though. I’m going to do something that’s tough for me – try and focus on tasting the moment I’m living in now.