Finally, I've Crossed Over

No, not to the dark side (I've been there since I was but a wee 5th grader wearing all black). No, I've crossed over into being a city person.

People ask me if I like living in San Francisco, and I do. But I sometimes qualify that answer by saying this is the first city I've ever lived in, so it's not quite fair to compare it to when I lived in New York or Florida. I've liked San Francisco since the day after I got here, and even the time I got attacked by a homeless person, I didn't hate it here. Nor did I hate it the night I got very lost in a bad area trying to go to a friend's house and wound up calling another friend crying, to help me.

The one thing that's consistently made it hard to adjust to city life is not having a car, and thus, using mass transit. For months after moving here, I never took public transportation by myself, and then finally graduated to only taking the N Judah, and only for two stops. To get to the supermarket and back. I am not one of those people who is ever late, but here in San Francisco, home of people who think nothing of flaking, I am sometimes late due to getting on the wrong train (or the right train going in the wrong direction).

This weekend I had houseguests who are from the country; two of the three were not at all familiar with mass transit. On Saturday we took a bus up to Market Street to catch the F Market because naturally we were going to Fisherman's Wharf. As M saw me yank on the string that runs along both sides of the bus, she shook her head, saying she didn't understand how it all worked. How did I know which bus to get on? How did I know where it was going? How did I know where to get off the bus?

And so I started talking. I pointed. I explained. I spun her around by the shoulders to see bus numbers. I showed her bus signs posted on the street. Possibly most importantly, I told her that after four years, I still sometimes get lost. I talked until my throat hurt, and then I talked a little more.

Sometimes she nodded, sometimes she stared in shock, but at the end of the night, I think she was a little less intimidated by the idea of one day doing this on her own. I hope she does it. I'll let her know she can call me crying when she's lost in a bad area at night.