My Soul Lives in SF: I lied, sometimes I do wax poetic

The area of San Francisco that I live in was an area inhabited by working class families from all over the globe. WAS: as in it was that way until I left for college. We had seen the number of school age kids decreasing as I moved further and further away from being that age, but by the same token there were always families like mine in the area.

Then, as expected, Gentrification hit my area as it did most others in San Francisco. It was happening while I still lived at home, before I ever ventured east for college but even still, it was always a weird thing to come home and realize, we were one of a few brown families in the area, and one of even fewer “original” residents in our hood.

Somehow in the years after adolescence I developed certain, aversions to different parts of the city. At one point I

found Chinatown so incredibly difficult to deal with because I worked there for 3 summers while home and grew sick of the hustle and bustle, the atmosphere and general attitude. Similarly I started to hate certain parts of the Mission district, which I began to correlate with memories of middle school, that painful time I don’t really think anyone wants to remember, now inhabited by tight jean wearing, Pabst Blue Ribbon swigging, anorexic hipsters/scenesters and recovering emo kids who make me feel like an alien in my own land.

My own neighborhood now inhabited by upper middle class white families, white/Asian families pushing babies with classically Asian eyes, but that are blue or with moppy blond heads, provokes similar feelings of estrangement. I get eyed at sometimes like, “who’s she?”  It was frustrating at first. Why did I feel disconnected from this place that I so desperately needed when I was out east? Why did I feel this strong need to be here after living elsewhere, to return, but feel so far from it all?

I guess I didn’t expect the change, I guess I didn’t know how to reintegrate myself back into this community. How hypocritical of me. I had changed, expected people to understand was my city not allowed to do the same? Granted, it was a different kind of change, sometimes for the worst, but still, I was this city, this city was me.

But recently, on my way to the bank before work, I suddenly felt a strong appreciation for this place again. I don’t know if it was that I was walking a path, where things hadn’t changed much. Al’s Diner was still there, something about the sidewalk it self seemed unchanged. In classic San Francisco fashion we still had our Donut/Burger/Chinese Food joints, as much as some things change, some things stay the same. I can count on the Joe’s scramble at Al’s, or Vietnamese sandwiches at Little Paris in Chinatown and the awful smell of Durian fruit at the corner of Pacific and Stockton there.

On my way home, I passed the home my father first lived in when he came from the Philippines, just a block or two from where we live now. His cousins all stood outside as it’s still their family home, waiting for a limo to take them to a funeral for one of their siblings. Not as sad of a moment as one might expect, she lived a good long life. There they stood, my extended family, still in that building after all these years, still the church going folk they’ve always been. I felt a moment of awe. They were still there, we were all still here. The aunties and uncles still dressed to the nine’s carrying rosaries, a few with canes now. The teenage girls, still acting like any event is a fashion show wearing completely matched outfits of black and white, even down to the sunglasses and purses. I wouldn’t be attending the funeral, as I was just 10 minutes away from a shift at work. Dad would go, and I would tell him what I’d seen and he’d laugh because indeed nothing had changed. I’d walk up the stairs into the living room where he sat, waiting for his brothers to arrive as the church where services would take place is around the corner from our house. I’d enter a usual Magtonic style rant about the teens and their materialistic weird Filipino-ness I’d just passed. He laughed, said, “You’re that way too sometimes,” I guffawed. “You’re wearing an adidas Philippines track jacket Nic,” he said. And that, I could not deny.

And while it’s true there’s this eclectic mix of change and past in my life I have to say I’ve become grateful for it all.