UNFINISHED INSPIRATIONS

Unfinished projects

Like many fellow creatives, I have a stack of unfinished projects. When we lived in the suburbs, my answer was to invite friends to my house once a month for Craft Day. We would all bring something to work on. Friends brought knitting, quilts, jewelry, greeting cards, and photo albums, anything that stared at them from a closet, asking to be finished. We shared a lunch and companionship as well.

I also attend creative workshops, with the result that I come home with new unfinished projects that need time and thought to complete. Some of them are watercolor projects, others are book arts projects, and some are calligraphy. All of them asking me for time.

In front of me is a small completed project, a simple box about two inches by three inches that I covered in marbled paper made by Pietro Accardi, a marbled paper master. All I need to complete the box, which I named "Quote Collector," are some quotes that grab my attention. So far, I have two that relate to creative thinking:

As I look at these two quotes, I realize I have the perfect place for them between scraps of failed watercolors that I had glued on both sides of heavy paper. I love the subtle hues of the cover, these watercolors made, and the pages that I've added inside seem a good place to write new quotes. Did I just add another unfinished project to my collection?

Pages from Landscapes of the Mind, unfinished booklet

At the Letters conference in L.A. last year, I created the beginnings of "A Stamp Book." The pages each contain one stamp. I started the book by writing something in pencil about each stamp or adding a quote from the person featured on the stamp, but I'm only halfway through the book. I still need to add something to the stamps that represent Clara Barton, World Peace Through Law, the Boys Club and Camp Fire Girls, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, and the Statue of Liberty. Maybe I will just add the phrase carved on the Statue of Liberty to my page. And I need to rewrite the statements in ink. The book is a reminder of my stamp-collecting hobby when I was in grade school, and also that stamps acknowledge, in miniature form, parts of our history.

Stamp Book with quotes ready to be written in pen

I still purchase stamps at the post office. This week, I went to the huge Rincon Post Office building that covers an entire block. The post office has been moved to one corner, but is still city-large. I was one of three people walking towards the teller behind the counter. Our steps echoed against the marble floor. I thought of how busy post offices used to be. I would avoid certain times of the day to miss the long lines. Though the lines may be reduced, I feel the same way about the post office as I do about paying taxes. It's a privilege to have both. The post office is still an important service provided to Americans, no matter where they live.

The original Rincon post office is now a small museum, which has maintained the murals painted around the walls after WWII. The murals depict parts of San Francisco's history, some of them full of labor strife and protests. The murals became controversial during the McCarthy era when some considered them un-American because they didn't depict the celebration of the idea of America. That reminds me of the parts of our history that our government is trying to remove now.

At the counter, I asked for a sheet of the LowRiders stamps with images of the low-rider cars that used to be mocked when I was young, and that represented a side culture of Mexican American resistance to the Hot Rods of the day. Since moving to San Francisco, we noticed on weekends cavalcades of Low-Riders as they drive the Embarcadero towards the Golden Gate Bridge. The cars are amazing to look at, not only for their engineering, but for their meticulous paint jobs. The deYoung Museum now displays two low-rider cars in its main lobby, showcasing their artistry. By acknowledging the creative work found in these cars, our culture has opened up to consider the ideas behind these cars and the people inside them as important and relevant to our mainstream culture. Besides, the stamps also highlight the Low-Riders' use of the Gothic font, a connection to calligraphy, too.

Low-Riders Forever Stamp

SPRING-GLORIOUS

Do you remember reading e.e.cummings in high school? One phrase he wrote, "mud-luscious," stuck with me. Last weekend, instead of mud-luscious, the weather was "spring-glorious." Golden poppies, nasturtiums, apple tree blossoms, and daffodils crowded the hills in the East Bay. The Carquinez Straits between Benicia and Martinez sparkled as tankers moving away from Sacramento through the water out to sea. Early Spring in California. Nothing seems to be wrong when it is Spring in its flourishing best. Blue skies, blue water, flowers covering hills, slight breeze to keep it cool. For a while we could forget the horrendous news that drops into our sight every day.

Since living in a city again, I have lost my sense of direction, which was so easy to determine when I had hills, tree shadows, and changes in the season. In cities, buildings nullify my sense of direction. This week, the sun came through a different window in the morning. The reflection off of the skyscraper windows sent the light not from the east, but from northwest instead. No wonder I am confused.

I find myself having to orient myself when I am walking on a street filled with tall buildings as if I am in a dense forest with nothing to direct me from one direction to another. The buildings' shadows fool me. I often turn in the direction I think I want to go only to discover it is the exact opposite, much like when we lived in Tokyo and I walked out of the Shinjuku subway and would take a wrong turn. There, every street looked alike with small shops packed together and overhead lighting flooding the streets like Las Vegas nightlife.

 The other day, I came out of a bakery on Market Street and turned to my left thinking I was going to head to the Ferry Building. Instead, I found myself facing the opposite direction where Market Street starts to disappear into San Francisco neighborhoods. Market Street runs the length of downtown ending at the Ferry Building near the Bay and in the other direction, wandering past the Castro till it culminates in Diamond Heights to become Portola Drive. I think I should be able to sense my direction, but again the buildings and shadows fool me.

"In a Churchyard Garden"

Portola is a common name in California. Gaspar de Portola was a Spanish Army officer who led the expedition with Father Junipero Serra through the lands of the Washoe, Raymatush Ohlone, Miwok, Pomo, and other indigenious tribes. We all know the effects of Western migration on indigenous tribes whose lands became the United States. The book, Ishi, the Last of His Tribe by Theodora Kroeber, represents the fate of so many tribes across the nation. Ishi was the last know member of the Yahi people. He came to San Francisco early in the 20th Century as a ward of a renowned anthropologist, and soon succumbed to tuberculosis, one of those diseases that white settlers passed on to various tribes. The name Portola, who was long gone before Ishi was discovered, still lingers as place names throughout California and remains a good reminder to understand more of history than just names.

Brass marker with the word in Raymatush for sky.
Raymatush is an oral language and doesn't have a written alphabet.
The plaque designer chose to show the English translation
in a different script from the Raymmatush.

California is a land of immigrants. We can find part of our history by looking for the origins of place names. Many names, such as San Francisco or Figueroa, refer to the Spanish exploration. Other places are words from the indigenous peoples' languages: Napa, the Patwin name for home, Shasta, Inyo, Siskiyou, Suisun, Sonoma (Pomoan for Valley of the Moon), and Tuolumne (cluster of stone wigwams) are a few. In San Francisco on King Street, we can walk on brass plates that form a dictionary of Raymatush words. By knowing the names and the history behind them, we pay silent homage to the tribes that Western exploration displaced.

Check out the list of indigenous names here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_California_placenames_of_Native_American_origin

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Let's pause in honor of these soldiers killed last week in the war in Iran:

Sgt. Benjamin Pennington, 26, of Glendale, Ky

Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Florida 

Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Nebraska 

Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota 

Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa

Maj. Jeffrey R. O’Brien, 45, of Indianola, Iowa 

Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan, 54, of Sacramento, California

 

PEOPLE-FRIENDLY PLACES

Window View February 2026

Wednesday is our day to get out early to explore the City. This past Wednesday we returned to San Francisco's City Hall. Since we moved to the city, we have paid our property taxes in person at City Hall. This small act makes the tax payment seem more real to us. On our first visit, we expected to find a busy, noisy place, teeming with angry people. We glanced at the new statue of former Mayor Ed Lee before we passed through the baggage check. Instead of cacophony on a weekday, the halls were quiet. The sounds of people walking through were muted and echoed against the marble walls. Maybe it was the live wedding music we heard (Pachelbel's Canon in D Major) drifting down from the fourth floor gallery. We've become nostalgic onlookers of wedding parties as they pose for photos on the Rotunda's grand staircase. Several groups waited their turns to approach the wedding hall. Last Wednesday, no one seemed to be in a rush anywhere.

Alcoves on the first floor hold statues of other mayors. Some are familiar to me: Dianne Feinstein, who became one of our U.S. Senators, George Moscone, who was assassinated in his office, and Art Agnos, who was mayor during the Loma Prieta earthquake and led the effort to tear down the Embarcadero Freeway.

by Bill Slavin

The tax collector and accessor offices are located in this elegant Beaux Arts building. We walked into the accessor's office to ask someone to explain the supplemental and escape property tax bills we received this year after buying a condo in the city. We were concerned that we might be paying more now in property taxes than we did when we lived in a big house in Danville. We found the people who work in the tax offices to be friendly, patient, and helpful. The idea that government workers are lazy or rude is a stain on the actual people who work there. We received undivided attention to our questions and walked away feeling good once again that our money (taxes) were an important part of our life in California. And no, we aren't paying more than before.

Leaving City Hall from the opposite entrance from the Civic Center Plaza, we walked past the headquarters for the California Supreme Court, another Beaux Arts design, to Books Inc,  located in Opera Plaza on Van Ness. We can never pass up a bookstore and found a Peet's Coffe conveniently connected to the store. After I purchased Hector Garcia's The Magic of Japan, and we had a coffee and pastry, we walked back through the Civic Center and stopped to watch a group who covered the steps leading to City Hall. They carried numerous signs and were protesting any decrease in funding for the city's environmental protection office. At the moment we were listening to the speeches of local supervisors, I received a text about writing to our representatives about regulating AI technology. Two distinct issues but connected due to lack of regulation to prevent climate change events.

by Bill Slavin

Across the way from City Hall, we noticed a Zumba class moving to music rhythms. We crossed over to walk through the arcade of sycamore trees that stretched across the plaza. The trees, still without leaves, were pruned the old way so that the ends of the branches were like knobs or knuckles. As we ventured through the central plaza, we noticed children playing on structures at the Helen Diller playground near the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. 

At the other end of the plaza a gathering of food trucks offered dim sum and tamales, boba tea and crepes. Workers on their lunch break sat at the benches within the food truck square. Across Larkin Street stands another Beaux Arts building which now houses the Asian Art Museum. On Wednesdays, between the museum and the Main Library, Fulton Plaza is home to a bustling farmers market, where this time of year green vegetables, apples, and mandarin oranges filled the stands. We saw flowers, bunches of Chinese broccoli, and bok choy sticking out of the hand carts that people were using to carry their purchases. Further back from the market at U.N. Plaza, is a skateboard park teeming with young people testing their skills.

by Bill Slavin

We continued our walk towards Market Street. Across from the library, the street in front of the Orpheum Theater was crowded with mostly seniors ready to see "The Notebook" musical.

Europeans long ago figured out how to make the centers of their cities inviting. Skyscrapers won out in the United States and downtowns are often windy, cold places where people rush past each other in the shade of the tall buildings. In San Francisco, the Civic Center, like Union Square and the Embarcadero, invites people to use the space. The plaza at the Civic Center is surrounded by massive Beaux Arts buildings, but the open space allows sunlight and room for people to interact with each other in very different ways. Our visit on Wednesday was a good reminder of what is possible.

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Listen to Pachelbel's Canon in D Major:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptk_1Dc2iPY 

Hector Garcia has lived in Japan for 15 years and writes about what he has learned about Japanese culture.Garcia's books, including The Magic of Japan, can be found at Bookshop.org:   https://bookshop.org/beta-search?keywords=hector+garcia