Malinda Lo

OK, folks, it’s happened. I’ve lived here in small-town Fairfax for just over two months, and at last I’ve had my first full-on bout of homesickness for San Francisco. Yeah, San Francisco is only half an hour away by car, and I was just there last Thursday, but it was on Saturday night that it all shifted for me. I realized: I don’t live there anymore.

I was in Sausalito. It was an amazingly clear, warm night — the kind we only get a few times a year here in the Bay area. No fog, no wind, and the moon was giant — clear and round and making the bay glitter. Amy* and I were walking down waterfront sidewalk, and it was absolutely perfect. No one could ask for a better night. And there, across the bay, glimmering like Christmas lights, was San Francisco. But here I was, on the other side of the water.

The fact is, you can’t see the city as the jewel that it is unless you’re no longer in it.

I’ve lived in cities for the majority of my adult life. I’ve gotten used to using public transportation. Sadly, I’ve gotten used to walking swiftly down the sidewalks and ignoring persistent panhandlers. I’ve also gotten used to having a corner store at the end of the block, and a neighborhood bar to go to where I might run into my friends, and a city park to go to when the sun shines and everyone comes out to play. I’ve gotten used to taking taxis home, and paying a lot for a martini, and buying stuff at a tiny hardware store stacked to the ceiling instead of at Home Depot.

I’ve gotten used to having an overwhelming selection of restaurants to choose from on Friday nights. I’ve gotten used to threading my way through crowds downtown, and riding the subway while reading a book. I know how to dress in the city, and I know how to act in the city, and I know how to live in it.

None of these skills are of much use to me in this small town, where it seems like all the rules are different.

It’s not that I don’t like living here — I love it. There are lots of great things about living here, starting with the view from my window (a giant oak tree). But so many things are different, and apparently this weekend they all reared up and said, "Look! Look what has changed!" It made me miss wide sidewalks and people dressed like hipsters and the views — oh, the views! — of buildings clinging to hills, dropping down in breathtaking fashion toward the ocean. That San Francisco.

So, for those of you who love cities, here’s a little poem I wrote a long time ago when I lived in New York City. I spent two years there, in Manhattan. I didn’t love that city the way I love San Francisco, but it made a lasting impression on me.

Lots of people have written about New York, and I’m sure that my little poem doesn’t necessarily offer anything new, but it is a memory I had — and still have — of living in the city.

New York

During the day it wasn’t much magic.
Only at night did it pulse at me
the way your finger pulses
when it is tied off:
blood forced hot to the skin,
and the release, like quick breath, water
for the thirsty.

In a false Turkish bar in Alphabet City,
we drink sour lime tonics, heavy with gin,
and emerge from the dark cool cavern
into the vaulted city night:
the air moves like smoke around us,
the dirt of the day melting into streetlight.

—

* I started off writing "my girlfriend," and then I changed it to "my fiancée," and I then I thought: This is obnoxious. She has a name!