Make sure to wear flowers in your hair

Even though it’s only my second time here, San Francisco has always felt like home for me. I feel that I should know exactly what bus to take and where everything is. As if it’s second nature. I have never felt this comfortable in NYC. I feel no pressure and no anxiety being here. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this in America. I am just content sitting in a coffeeshop reading a book. I love reading, don’t get me wrong, I have an addiction to it, but I have never just sat in a coffeeshop and did it. I don’t like to make my habit public. I’d stay here if I could.

$

$

Michelle: ugh, but I loved San Fran

me: It’s hard not to love.

But the price tag is as steep as its hills

You Reminded Me

While waiting for the bus, a little elderly lady turned to speak to me. She seemed very excited to chat with Melissa and I. Turns out she was from NYC, but has been living in San Fran since the 70’s. Good year to move, I said and she laughed. She would grab my elbow with excitement while the three of us chatted. It wasn’t creepy, just affectionate. This city is just so friendly. After asking what our majors were, she told me that she initially came over to tell me that I reminded her of Amy Goodman, with a Jewish-Buddhist monk air. I took the comparison as a huge compliment.

More Energy Healing, Russian-Style

Melissa and I decided that going to read in a park was going to be a great way to spend a morning/afternoon. Yes, I fly across the country to go read in a park with a friend. 

Laying around, eating grapes and scones, drinking lovely iced teas made by some friendly people, and drinking in the Vitamin D, I notice an older woman nearby speaking in Russian on the phone. Unlike Brooklyn, NY, Russian is a lot more rare in SF. She pauses to ask us a question in English, and I respond to her in Russian. I apologized for overhearing, but I asked if it would be easier for her to speak in our native language. She gets absurdly excited that I speak Russian, and then proceeds to tell me her life story, her medical issues, her daughter’s husband issues.. She also wants to read an article in her magazine to me. (Side story, every Russian granny seems to want to read articles from magazine to me. My own grannies in particular) The article was about the energy in one’s surroundings. Feng Shui, actually.

The article was unremarkable. Yet, she was the second person in a short amount of time to talk to me about energy healing….and ask if I was Georgian. Except she had good reason. She was Nina, a Russian Jew from Moscow, and I’m Yanina, a Russian Jew from Moscow. She was impressed by my dark facial features and pale skin. Although my family is pure Russian Jew. My maternal grandfather is the only one who isn’t. He’s a slavic-German-Christian…but now he’s an honorary Jew, and has been for quite some time. He was the first non-Russian-Jew to marry into my maternal grandmother’s bloodline. I’m amazed my brother and I came out without any diseases. Although, like most Jews, my brother and I suffer from being fucking crazy. 

She was rather nice. She threw out compliments to Melissa and I. She wished us well. She told us to go find ourselves. She told me that my soul knew the right thing to do.

I hope you’re right, lady.

Bronze Energy

I picked up Melissa after she got off work last night at 11. We went to a nearby bar that she enjoys and where she knows the bartenders. We’re having an intense conversation, about anxiety, our mothers, our body images…Honestly, if I was a dude I would not hit on the girl talking about psychoanalysis. 

Of course there is an eventful finger point into my back. I jump. He says he didn’t mean to startle me. He also asks, “Have you ever heard about Reiki?”