Love Letter to Hayes Valley

Fair Hayes Valley,

I loved you first for the green leafy globes atop the trees that line your main street, like a boulevard in Provence. They lend shade but you’re also filled with sun, bright happy sun on the grass of Patricia's Green where little buggers waddle around the jungle gym and quirky neighbors walk small dogs and sip from white coffee cups with black lids.

Then I found my place on the alleyway where the rusty white Cadillac is parked mid-block all day every day and revolution types drift lazily out the screen door from the café on the corner. I love the way the wind rattles the old single pane windows of my old Edwardian place and how I'll always like the people who live below me and next to me because they chose Hayes Valley too.

Incredible that you are also home to the best dive bar in the city, where I go to sip a beer next to scruffy mutts on couches with the stuffing bursting out. I haven’t found another neighborhood where we wierdos who love salty black licorice are treated to an entire wall lined with jars of the stuff.

I loved taking pictures of your Learning Wall on an Easter morning last year whose brilliance made the pinks and turquoise and mauve pop. And I love seeing white haired couples holding hands as they walk the two blocks from a simple meal at the trusty neighborhood grill with the white tablecloths to a night at the opera.

But most of all I love standing in my kitchen with the door open to the back porch, then walking out to look at the sun setting on the buildings of downtown and, further out, the mist that hovers over the bay.