This post was submitted by Zack Rosen

Some people like to see museum when they visit new cities. Others like to sample the local cuisines, or hit the bars, or put on their nicest clothes and pick up locals. I have one foolproof way of getting the lay of a new locale: getting stoned and wandering around. My relationship to urbs as varied as St. Louis, Providence and even my own DC were cemented over through a combination of joints and leg power. Even Chicago, my hometown, can be seen through fresh green eyes. So when I, like another TNG staff member, paid a visit to San Francisco that activity was first on my list. I arrived with my boyfriend, got coffee, got oriented to my neighborhood and went to sleep. But the next day I struck off on my own, met up with an old friend (and her medical marijuana prescription) and executed the old routine.

This was not my first trip to San Francisco. My first time was about 6 weeks before my college graduation and I loved it. I clicked with the place in a different way than any location prior. I left with a palpable certainlty that I had to live there some day. I moved to DC, though, for a variety of circumstances but never lost the dream. As each facet of my unexpected adult life fell into place- job, boyfriend, apartment, dog- I wouldn’t give it up as a destination. I didnt’ know when I would do it, but I promised myself I would.

In retrospect, though, my first visit to SF could have been nothing but perfect. In a reduction, it went like this:

Airport, weed, pizza, bed. Brunch, weed, cd shopping, dinner, party, beer, weed, blowjob, bed. Brunch, park, mushrooms, bonding experience, bed. Coffee, weed, drive through the redwoods, airport.

It wasn’t a vacation, it was a Phish show. I could’ve visited Poughkeepsie under such circumstances and perceived it as Burning Man. I’ve spent the three years since waiting to reclaim the little part of my soul that I left buried next to the carousel in Golden Gate Park. But when I went back it just wasn’t there.

My designated high wandering route was Haight St. It was the part of the city I had like the most on my first visit (and was also reputed to have the best shopping. I’m weak.) So I parted ways with my old friend (and her pot-requiring menstrual cramps) and sought to find the giant ethereal “X” in the sky that marked undefined treasure. It wasn’t there. Nothing was.

My boyfriend has accused me, and my admittedly spazzy tendencies, of liking to smoke pot because it slows me down. This is only half true. I think most stoners will tell you that they find the experience enjoyable because it tunes out background noise. At a given moment nothing will matter except for the joke you’re laughing at, the song you’re listening to or the liquid brown irises you’re staring into and thinking “Until this moment of my life, I never knew that eyes could be so beautiful.” The feeling might not be there in ten seconds, but it doesn’t matter. It’s eternal as long as it lasts. You can fool yourself into thinking you’ve found truth.

And the truth of my new view of San Francisco? It was a ghost town. The way that a spectre is fixed at a point in time for the rest of creation, righting what it wronged in life, was how the city now appeared to me. A pack of homeless teens petted their dogs in the park, and I was certain they’d be in the same spot in four weeks. The coffee shops were filled with people who were actually and only drinking coffee. Strangers to my task-driven DC eyes, they came armed not with laptops or newspapers, but an opiated resignation to wrap time around themselves like a blanket and luxuriate in its folds until something better called.

An old friend of mine moved to DC from the Bay Area. When I asked why she would leave such paradise for our Khaki-tinted grind, she told me that she had big plans for her life. Plans that would not be realized if she suddenly woke up to find herself still working at a Haight St. diner in four years, paying her bills and seeing her friends and keeping her ambitions in her fridge next to her hash brownies.

At the time I thought she was exaggerating. I thought my boyfriend was exaggerating when he voiced a similar sentiment. When he cautioned me a million times that it was a fun place to visit but I (specifically I) would not want to live there. And it might be time to begrudgingly admit that he’s right.

Being happy where I am has never been a strength of mine. So maybe this is a sign that its time to stop casting my ambitions at another coast and just accept the fact that I am where I am.

Although I do hear that Williamsburg is nice this time of year…

---

First time here? See what we're all about... Get involved... Send us a tip!...

---