ELEMENTAL

Photo by Bill Slavin

Staying up late gives me a chance to view one of the best times in the City. Out my windows, I can see the fog whispering around the skyscrapers in the distance, wrapping around the Salesforce Tower with its moving lights display. The tall buildings slowly disappear and won't appear again till early morning. The apartments across Mission Creek have a few lights on making sporadic dots along the creek. The last streetcar clangs across the 4th Street bridge and turns the corner on its way to Bay View at the south end of the City. The baseball game is over and only the giant illuminated scoreboard shows what happens in a corner of my window view. The Fourth of July with it myriad fireworks displays that sound like bombs dropping all around us is over. The rush of cars that travel to exit points to cross the Bay Bridge or out to the Peninsula have all gone home. Our neighborhood is quiet. Sounds carry well here, but there is little noise at this time of night even in a dense city such as San Francisco. The unhoused person who sometimes ventures into the park near our building early in the morning and screams to wake us up like a haunted rooster hasn't wondered through yet. Dog walkers and dogs are silent. The waff of Chinese music from the tai chi class won't sound till late morning. The chatter between the class and the man feeding the seagulls near them is still. I pull the shades and climb into bed and sleep like I never did when I was working or busy with responsibilities and worries that occupied my head every night. The quiet in the City is a surprise and a comfort.

Photo by Bill Slavin

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Check out Eric Rhoads who writes The Sunday Coffee column and who asked readers to answer this question about the two candidates for President:  "Would you trust this person with your grandchildren's lives?"  Something to think about.

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