open

tonight i met my friend jessica in the city for tacos at don pisto’s in north beach. (delicious food made even more wonderful by the company of the good, good heart of a beloved friend – and the baby girl in her belly!)

i just can’t get over how excruciatingly cool san francisco is, or how terribly happy its little quirks make me.

i was a bit early and my phone was dead so i took twenty minutes to soak in my surroundings. the hills were draped in fog, and the air smelled like charring pizza dough; music wafted out of restaurants and colorful houses perched so blithely on the slants of the streets. i watched people pass me and wondered where they were headed, who they were talking to on the phone, what they were worried about, why they were smiling. i popped in a couple clever little shops cozied into grant avenue under italian flags and green and red lights strung across the road. the mist moved as the people moved, sheeny and soft. 

i noticed these signs in the windows of the famous city lights bookstore, the windows below them stuffed with volumes of words and pictures and the ground below them stuffed with a trillion footsteps gone by. i thought about the signs as i drove home, wrapped up in memories i have in san francisco, and resolved to be more of an open door and open book, to have more of an open mind and open heart, to be everlastingly open for absorbing all the beauty of the vicissitudes of mortality.

thesaurus for “open”:
clear, unobstructed, sweeping, unfenced, exposed, unsheltered, uncluttered, vulnerable, frank, candid, honest, communicative, forthright, direct, unreserved, straightforward, upfront, patent, manifest, palpable, conspicuous, clear, evident, barefaced, brazen, unbiased, unprejudiced, receptive, amenable, willing to listen, ready to listen, responsive

open door, open books, open mind, open heart = live deliberately; live on purpose.

enthusiasm

came across this picture from a happy time years ago.

came across this quote for happy times in years to come:

there is nothing wrong with loving the crap out of everything. negative people build their walls. so never apologize for your enthusiasm. never. ever. never.
- ryan adams

i know sometimes i need to keep my enthusiasm for life in balance. but i’ll never apologize for loving the crap out of everything.

i love camping

 

one of my favorite things is to arrive somewhere in the dark, dark of night and then discover where i am in the morning. on friday i drove along a windy, windy road to camp lehi in the santa cruz moutains, set up a tent in the dark, pillow talked into the wee hours and then woke up to the grandeur of being enveloped in morning nature.

the weekend included hikes with views across the vast hills to the pacific ocean, zooming through the trees on a zipline, ropes/challenge course activities, no cell phone service, lots of sunshine and food, a hilarious variety show under the stars, campfires and socializing, a bumping dance party in the mess hall, and to top it off, church meetings in a magnificent redwood grove.

we sang “for the beauty of the earth” and “how great thou art” in sacrament meeting. when the breeze rustled the tops of the incredibly tall trees, dead amber boughs rained from the sundrenched sky.

i really love camping.

privileged

this week i’m feeling truly privileged to work where i work. and that awareness is really a requisite and apt tender mercy.

clayton christensen was in the office for our board meeting on tuesday and the following evening i was able to attend a speech of his at the church in palo alto. i sat there in the crowd just full-up, feeling incredibly honored to be involved in dr. christensen’s work.

two summers ago at bear lake, my brother had me read this interview aloud as a group of us drove to the other side of the lake. i felt deeply impressed. little did i know that in a few months i would be accepting a job as a researcher applying clayton christensen’s theories to the education sector. i’m grateful this week to reflect on all i have learned since i joined the innosight institute team and to ruminate on how this chapter of my life has been divinely orchestrated to be a part of my mortal curriculum.

{my favorite articles by clay are here and here}

the wait of monte cristo

on sunday i finished my month long de-tox challenge. it was such a good experience in self-control, savoring, habit-making and diligence. i am pretty proud of myself that for twenty-eight days i went without gluten, sugar, dairy, most meat and any processed food (plus many other things in the first weeks), and stuck to my meal plan with no exceptions.

the truth is that every one of those twenty-eight days i was thinking about one celebratory meal: the monte cristo sandwich from mama’s cafe in san francisco. the monte cristo is like a very, very good dream in food form. it’s ham, cheese and turkey on amazing homemade bread, egg-battered and grilled, and dusted in powdered sugar, to be dipped in fresh raspberry jam. yes. it’s the most incredible combination of sweet and savory – it’s oozy and pillowy and lip-smackingly luscious.

on wednesday morning kelsey and i got us a monte cristo at mama’s. and it was every bit as delectable as i’d imagined it all those gluten/dairy/sugar-free twenty-eight days.

 

also, being in north beach on a cloudy wednesday morning was just lovely. people walking to work up and down hills, people doing tai-chi in washington square park, the smell of bakeries and buses. oh, i love the city.

a tuesday night at the opera

we had to run madly around city hall to the opera house and got to our seats literally at the very second that the lights were being turned down to begin the performance of rigoletto.

and it was so, so worth the rush!

we sat on the second to last row and were captivated by the sung story of revenge and irrational love. gilda’s crystal-clear glass-breaking high notes were positively thrilling. we oodled at the fancy ambiance and loved being all dolled up.

a tuesday night at the opera! what a delight.

optomism

some thoughts from green gables for monday morning:

“i’m so glad it’s a sunshiny morning. but i like rainy mornings real well, too. all sorts of mornings are interesting, don’t you think? you don’t know what’s going to happen through the day, and there’s so much scope for imagination.”

“it’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. of course, you must make it up firmly.”

and another picture of sensationally glorious produce:

on saturday morning i slept in and went to the small downtown palo alto saturday farmers’ market. have i even mentioned that i love farmers markets???? there was a bluegrassy band with an upright bass playing, and people sitting on the street and a a few rows of rosy, jaunty stands bursting with fruits and vegetables and fresh pastries. i bought pluots and figs and heirloom tomatoes and a melon and some splendidly cheerful strawflowers. there was a little family fair down the road, which we popped by. i came home and ate figs and almond butter and put the flowers in a vase and then walked to the park, laid out a blanket and read under the sun. then i ran seven miles through lovely palo alto neighborhoods, lined with tall shady trees and charming homes.

and i just felt so optimistic.

produce and skyscrapers

yesterday after work i drove up to the city to meet kelsey to continue our “yet unseen san francisco” exploring. now that my office is in san mateo, it is quite quick to get up to sf on a weeknight, which i love.

i met kels on her corner in the castro, where there’s a evening farmers’ market every wednesday. i could never emphasize emphatically enough how much i love farmers’ markets. look at this produce!!! eating fresh samples at the farmers’ market is one of the supreme simple pleasures of life – really!

  

we hopped on the muni train and headed downtown. did you know that san francisco city ordinances require skyscrapers to incorporate a certain square footage of public open space into their building plans? that means that scattered all around the financial district there are gardens and terraces tucked into corners and accessible to anyone. we set out to discover some of these so called POPOS (privately owned public open spaces). unfortunately, most of them close at 6, so we did a lot of peeking through fences and windows, but we did find some pretty neat spots.

 
the transamerica pyramid:

and its redwood grove POPO:

the views from the rooftop terrace POPO at the crocker galleria:
   
more urban scenes:
 
and us in a mission street POPO as it got dark and the city started to glimmer:

we finished the evening by going to the top of macy’s in union square for one last view:

walking those lively streets with cold fingers and a dear friend and the fading sky was good for my soul.

colorful

last saturday i went up to san francisco for a day full of places i’d never seen in the city that has my heart. kelsey showed brittany and i around some secret spots.

we had fun at the seward street slides, at a park nuzzled into the castro hills:
     
it was a sunny lovely day (yay for indian summer in sf!) so we walked from the castro to the mission. i loved discovering yet unseen street art and fabulous victorians:
-- 
we browsed through some fantastic valencia street shops, like paxton gate with it’s animal heads, curious trinkets and captivating succulents:
 
 
and the pirate store, which was hilariously awesome:
 
{the pirate store has all these cubbies you can open to find outrageously clever pirate supplies. i happened to open one marked “entrap” that caused a net to drop down and capture me!}

after swooning over some the creativity and quirk of valencia street shops, we stopped by the san francisco public library in civic center:
 
at lunchtime, we headed to shakespeare in the park at the presidio. we’d just chatted about how much we love public transportation, and then it took us over an hour to get to the main post lawn. it was sad because we ran out of time to explore, but i kind of loved the long journey, under the glad blue sky passing harlequin homes and zany people and gathering up color and vitality from the city.

we sat on the grass and ate and watched just a bit of henry v. the presidio was basking in sunshine and the golden gate bridge was peaking on us around the corner.

there’s no end to exploration in san francisco. when i’m there i want to live there again so much, but mostly i just want to emulate the city’s colorfulness wherever i go.