Sense of Place

Pyramid Building and Friend....rcw

We live in a fantastic part of San Francisco!  Seriously, Russian Hill/North Beach is kind of the best of the best....near enough to get anywhere and close enough to everything is one point, but the other is the real "melting pot" aspect of the place.

Chinatown to the left, Little Italy to the right, and all the old Beat/Bohemian landmarks sprinkled in between the two.

Sam Wo's Chinese restaurant, with it's entrance through the kitchen and incredible staircase leading diners up to various floors filled with old wooden tables and stools....Trieste Cafe with it's patrons and their animated conversations carrying on both inside and outside....frothy coffee, thick pastry and poetry....there's just so much Here here, I have no desire to live anywhere else!

When I was working 24/7 at the Co-Op, I didn't have the time to appreciate my surroundings.  For years, people would come to visit and I didn't know the first thing about our neck of the woods.  It's embarrassing to say that, but very true.  I think a lot of us suffer that same thing; too busy to see the world around us.

These past couple of years, give or take the first several months spent in "reclusive recovery," I've taken full advantage of time and have started taking walks, becoming familiar with my surroundings....and falling in love.
No, not with another person!  No one could ever replace Jack!  I've fallen in love with my neighborhood....massively, unabashedly and totally in love with everything from the church bells and cable cars to the many different sounds, exotic aromas and dialects that are offered during a walkabout.

I'm eternally grateful to Gary, our dear friend and Co-Op co-founder, for helping secure our living arrangements.  Bless him and may he rest in peace....such a dear friend!

So for today, Fifty Five is the New Sense of Place, a sense of being home and belonging to a community, and considering North Beach history, I fit in pretty good!