Suzy Says

I hadn’t realized how much I enjoyed walking to work with Rufus in the mornings, until now, when I can’t. I guess that’s human nature for you, both in great and small matters. Now that I’m alone and it’s still pretty dark, it’s a combination of boring and slightly creepy, because I feel so conspicuous on my own. Isn’t it unfair that women feel that way, just because they are women?

I have been walking the most direct route the past couple of weeks, and it’s probably almost the hardest possible walk: down Franklin (heading south, but mostly uphill), then east on California. This way consists almost entirely of hills. You know how people say that walking downhill is harder than walking uphill? Well, all I can say is, I’m not breathless once I start downhill on California.

When I first moved here, I remember that my legs hurt from walking up and down the unaccustomed hills. Now streets that I used to struggle up hardly even seem like hills to me. Today, for example, I walked east on Jackson Street instead of California, and it hardly even seemed like a hill at all. We used to live on Jackson, but I hardly ever walk that way now. It was fun to see what had changed and what hadn’t. The guy who has spotlit mannequins in his window still does (today’s theme: somewhat naughty Santa), and when I passed the cable car barn, the cable cars were yawning and stretching, their bells clanging softly as they prepared for another day of going up and down the hills.

The first car of the day was coming out of the barn as I passed, and the brakeman called out, “Need a ride, young lady?” Despite the fact that I was really, really tempted to (I could get to work in half the time! No effort at all! Yesss!), I said, “Not today, thanks”. I love being called “young lady” and “miss”, especially as age advances. Partly because, well, it’s flattering, and partly because I still think of myself as a girl, and feel like one, too. It’s like that episode of “Ab Fab” when Patsy gets called “Madame” on the plane to Paris and she goes crazy, yelling, “‘Selle! MademoiSELLE!” That’s how I feel, too.

As I headed down Jackson and away from the temptation of the cable car, I saw the twinkling lights on the Bay Bridge, reflected in the dark waters of the Bay, and noticed that the sky was changing from a deep midnight blue to that unearthly shade of cerulean favored by medieval artists. The sky was still scattered with stars and the very last crescent moon, and it shaded to pink at the edges of the east, where the sun would soon be making its daily debut. I thought, “What a beautiful city this is.”