Apr 29 2001
Sunday Morning
Now I keep hearing that Velvet Underground song in my head. Had my ritual morning coffee up on the roof deck this morning. I only have one cup a day, but I am no less addicted for that!
I trace my coffee addiction to a summer I spent in Nice at the impressionable age of 17, when my hosts taught me to drink black coffee and pick dewy strawberries from their garden for breakfast. I didn’t pick the strawberries myself today, but just as I did on those long-ago summer mornings, I had black coffee and strawberries. But instead of sitting on a patio with the ancient city of Nice spread out below me, I was on our roof deck, bare feet on sun-warmed wood, watching the white sails that dot San Francisco Bay and seeing the twinkle of traffic crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.
It’s surprisingly tranquil up there on a Sunday morning, even though my apartment building is surrounded by other buildings. But there is the blue water of the Bay and the hidden gardens that can’t be seen from the street. Hummingbirds dart around the flowers and butterflies flutter past. And one of the great joys of the city: the wild parrots fly over, making their raucous noises and clattering their green and red wings. These parrots are supposed to be descendants of a pair that escaped their cages many years ago. I don’t know if that’s true, but their call is as much the sound of home to me as the deep voiced fog horns or the bright ring of the cable cars.