Right before leaving work I talked to my coworker about how much we love the beach and we drifted off into designing our dream office, complete with an ocean view out of a retractable wall of windows, salty sea air and the cry of seagulls marking each hour of the work day. With this still on my mind as I drove home up the Embarcadero with the windows down, I was inspired to get out of the house and enjoy our well earned Indian Summer weather. Armed with my house keys, iPod, and a light sweater which no native San Franciscan leaves home without, I walked down Polk St. to Aquatic Park en route to Fort Mason and Marina Green.
At the very tip of the park just below the hill to Fort Mason, I stopped to watch a sea lion play around a small green fishing boat, entertaining the dozens of locals and snap-happy tourists on the pier. As I started to turn up the hill a flock of brown pelicans caught my eye, flying in perfect graceful form, gliding just above the surface of the bay, effortlessly. The brown pelican is one of the most awe inspiring, beautiful things in San Francisco; every time I am lucky enough to see them it stops me in my tracks as if a celebrity crossed my path, or like I've caught a glimpse of the northern lights; better take it all in and soak up every second, because this doesn’t come along every day. Except here it does. The pelicans fly every evening, but they’re just so beautiful and perfect that I can’t help but want to watch them for hours on end.
As the pelicans glided onward, I took a look back across the iridescent pink and purple water at Russian Hill behind me and “wow” rolled right out of my mouth. The city looked so perfectly packaged, staged almost, like Disneyland, feeling that there is no way something real could look that perfect. The clock tower at Ghiradelli Square dominated the cluster of red, pink and white buildings on the hill, disproportionately similar to the Main Street USA train station, complete with clear round bulb lights defining its classical structure. Just beyond the clock tower the TransAmerica building protruding from the skyline commanding attention, much like the Anaheim Matterhorn. I became suddenly aware of myself and realized I was ogling like a lovestruck teenager, so I continued on my route.
Coming up the hill toward Fort Mason, a crew team paddled by, leaving Alcatraz in its wake. I zigzagged slowly up the hill watching them push toward the horizon under the Golden Gate Bridge. “Oh my” sat on my breath as the sunset over the bridge was revealed beyond the terracotta roof of Festival Pavilion. I walked down the shaded path to a clearing in the beach trees until the beauty itself brought me to a halt. A wide open view of the entire span of the bridge, San Francisco to Sausalito, sat proudly before me. The water now a cool glittering periwinkle, the twinkling lights of the bridge leading upward to the orange glow of the setting sun. Pink clouds hung low and painted the sky for the finishing touch. I couldn’t move. Seagulls sang a perfect soundtrack to the surreal scene before me, a bay cruise ship happily danced across the water with white lights lining each deck. Each breath got deeper and slower. I just wanted to drink it all in, to somehow capture it and watch it over and over again. It was like the last day of vacation, where you can’t help but just stare at the view before you with eyes wide, trying, hoping, to take as much in as you can, inhaling to smell the air around you, and immortalize the moment.
As the sky tinted from orange to purple, I took one last deep breath and turned for home, checking over my shoulder every few steps to catch the last of the perfect evening. Maybe part of the evening’s beauty laid in the fact that it was just another night, a random Thursday that I decided to take a walk after a long day of work. Maybe part of it was not needing my sweater after sundown. And maybe part of it was realizing how much this city has to offer. I smiled the whole way home thinking to myself “I can’t believe I live here”.
It was one of the most beautiful nights I’ve ever seen in San Francisco.
