One of the things I realized when revisiting San Francisco for the first time in more than a decade — and only for the second time since I lived here, I think — was how much the city hasn’t changed compared to the period from 2002 through 2008 when I called it home; I came back with my headspace very much informed by what happened when I went back to Scotland after more than a decade, and found it so different from what I remembered (and expected) that it left me uncomfortable and adrift. The same was surely true of SF, I was convinced, steeling myself for that off mix of disappointment and confusion that I’d felt in my home country. But it… wasn’t…?
That’s not entirely true; there are certainly parts of the city that aren’t the same, and many of the places that formed core landmarks and memories of my city as I lived in it way back when just aren’t there anymore. (Park Chow, how I miss you…!) But I was consistently surprised by how many are, how entire neighborhoods have so many of the same stores and places to eat, how so much of the architecture hasn’t changed in all this time. I went back to the first neighborhood I lived in when I moved to the city (to the country), and it felt as if almost no time had passed; it wasn’t just that my old apartment building was unchanged, but the restaurants and stores around the corner were the same, and the laundromat where I’d spend Sunday afternoons was still open. I walked up and down Clement Street, the mix of Asian markets and restaurants I killed so much time in seemingly strangely intact, with places like Green Apple, Hamburger Haven, and The Bitter End all still there too. How did this happen? I thought to myself. Shouldn’t most of these places have disappeared by now?
I took the same buses (and MUNI trains!) around the city as I did when I lived here, unconsciously knowing exactly where to catch them and what numbers of buses to go for; when I rode on them, the announcements of the next stops sounded like poetry I’d learned years ago that was resurfacing in my head, and the view out the window looked entirely familiar. I went downtown and wandered the streets around where I used to work, and that looked the same, as well, more or less. (Downtown SF, I realized, felt like downtown Seattle to me now that I have more familiarity with the latter city; that feels like an insult, in a way, but one that’s not undeserved.)
It felt good, going back. Better than I’d expected, and a trip that made my head buzz with thoughts and possibilities and nostalgia in a way that felt welcome and filled with potential, instead of melancholy like my Scotland revisit. It felt like something necessary, in some inexplicable, welcome way.