Tell me how to mother myself on the days when a young man in class won’t pay attention while I’m talking, and instead of rolling my eyes at his immaturity, I ask myself if anything I’ve ever done in my long career as a teacher has ever really made a difference. Show me how to make the list of ingredients from memory for Pop’s lasagna, even though I’m not eating cheese or wheat or beef right now, show me how to find a way to recreate something warm and comforting that would somehow be equivalent without confusing my gut. Let me see red sauce instead of simply seeing red. Help me find a cashew cheese that actually melts, lead the way to the boxes of red lentil noodles, remind me to add a splash of balsamic instead of red wine. Sit me down in time to enjoy this meal.
Remind me what it was about San Francisco that I fell in love with all those years ago, when I was a teenager with a wild cloud of wavy chestnut hair and I had my whole life ahead of me. How we traveled by car across the country and arrived at that sparkling bay and that fantastic old bridge. How we ate from little paper cups on Fisherman’s Wharf, bay shrimp and crab cocktail, little oyster crackers, warm sourdough bread with butter. Take me back to Ghirardelli Square that first time, the golden lights spelling out the Italian name above the old brick structure, remind me that buildings, like lives, can be rebuilt, renovated, reborn.
Tell me the story again of how my parents fell in love with this city fifty years ago, the clang clang clang of the trolly, the bells ringing out over the Stanford Court with the Tiffany dome at the crest of Nob Hill, where the view in all directions looked like a postcard. Remind me that it still does, even on the days when I am driving in my sensible purple car past tent cities, or slamming on the brakes because someone on a scooter has decided that stop signs don’t matter anymore. When I feel like the air controlled bubble I am floating in could break down any day now after nine years and 70,000 miles, and it seems impossible to imagine buying a new car in this economy, in this historical time in our troubled lives.
Don’t let me yearn for the old days, like a wizened old man, let me accept that they are gone. And teach me, someone, some ancestor—Mama, Merijane, some good ghost—please teach me how to see the way forward with the same light and hope I had looking for my first job thirty years ago, when I was twenty-seven, trudging through a rain-soaked SOMA in secondhand clothes. Don’t let me cling to these three decades of loss and change. Instead, shine a light on the path ahead, even if you don’t come with me, shine a light, please, so I can find my way through.
I want to be able to hold the memories like something precious, a sleeping baby or a favorite old book, and at the same time, I want to look ahead, not constantly behind. I work so hard not to feel regret, to instill hope in others, even that boy today in class with his stupid smirk. Even him. Help me find the way to see the path ahead, just a little of it, and to not be so afraid of the dark.
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The writing prompt that inspired this piece was 4 x 4:
Generate four lists:
1. Four cities you are familiar with (they do not have to be cities you love)
2. Four colors
3. Four people you love or have loved
4. Four favorite foods
After you’ve generated the lists, take one word from each list, and create four new combinations.
Choose one of the combinations that interests you the most, and come up with a few descriptive words or sensory details that you associate with each of words in that list. Don’t think too hard or write too much. This is your prompt.
Now write for 20 minutes: anything that comes to mind. Don’t worry if the writing takes you somewhere unexpected.
The Catalyst 