Butterflies, Bays, and Beaches

 Spring break. That elusive, stereotyped, sun-draped week of wonder. The teaser for summer, the anticipation junky dream, the step from the dappled light of every day to the full sun of freedom. Mine has not disappointed. My week has been an itinerary of spontaneity, a constant drive for more. My feet touched bridges, boats, trains, tunnels, trails, sand, boardwalks, cable cars. My hands reached for butterflies, flowers, palm trees, bike helmets, sting rays, dresses, lighthouses, railings. Every day I reached farther and farther.

 Day One- Japanese Tea Gardens, Twin Peaks, and Cable Cars

I used to think a girl in a flowing dress running frantically was cliché. Not anymore. This is the constant reality of my life. Sometimes it is an out of body experience, watching myself enact what I’d once glorified. But most of the time I just run and laugh later about how ridiculous I look. The week began running to the Japanese Tea Gardens. I made it through the gates minutes before the free admission period ended. The stress of the run evaporated immediately upon entrance as I surveyed the sweet serenity of the place around me. Everything looked airbrushed, neatly patted into place, painted with the delicacy of an eyelash brush. Fish dotted the ponds in slow, twinkling brushstrokes of color, and I struggled to take in every detail.

Next my friend Maddelyn and I set out for Twin Peaks, one of the greatest scenic outlooks in the city. The bus we took plopped us in the middle of a residential neighborhood with no sign of a trail. My mentality with directions is always to set off in one direction (whether or not it’s the right one). In this case that meant up. So we took the first staircase we could find. The path led us through beautiful, cottage-like homes, underneath large flowering canopies and Spanish colonial rooftops. We reached the top of the staircase and surveyed our surroundings. First calmly, then desperately. Maddelyn and I sucked in our breath at the same time in a movie moment of confusion. We were once again stuck in a residential area. After climbing a characteristically San Franciscan flight of steep steps, it’s a feeling I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

We wandered for a while and eventually found a public footpath. From there it was just more up, up, up. We could see the view from behind the greenery, growing wider and wider. Our feet became the lenses with which we shrunk our world. The top was nothing short of spectacular. Downtown San Francisco popped up like the page of a storybook, the rest of the city expanding outward in waves of hills and houses dotted with hastily applied watercolor. I searched for all of the landmarks I’d visited, all of the skyscrapers I knew. It felt like a giant game of “Where’s Waldo?” renamed “Where’s Hannah been?” I remember thinking, “Huh. So this is what the big picture is.” 

 Later that night, both of us were exhausted. But another friend challenged us to go out and see what we could make of the night. So we barely caught the bus into downtown (running dramatically of course) and we barely caught a cable car leaving from downtown to Fisherman’s Wharf. We didn’t expect much but a scenic nighttime ride. While on the cable car we met two exhausted tourists. They shared that after one hill too many, the only thing they wanted to do in the city was drink. After we’d continued the polite conversation, they offered each of us what is called a City Pass. We may as well have been handed two golden tickets. Inside the little tourist handbook we found free passes to the biggest museums of the city. Moral of the story—the night always has something up its sleeve.

Day Two- Academy of Science and Legion of Honor

With our city passes in hand, day two started out with the Academy of Science. The museum is organized into an underground aquarium, an earthquake simulation, and two big domes. We saw a show in the first dome, the largest digital planetarium in the nation. The second dome was a representation of the Amazon’s canopy layers, complete with the sound of fluttering birds and butterflies never far away. I laughed when the elevator attendant asked all leaving the dome to “Check yourself for butterflies!” I had a different kind, born in my stomach from the excitement of such a day.

We then went to the Legion of Honor art museum to see the visiting Brooklyn Fashion collection. There is nothing like the desire of a girl for the exquisite, unfathomable elegance of another time. Regardless of what one wears, one will always yearn for the fabric inches away, and the resonating feeling the simple caress of a dress can evoke. I laughed at a designer dress splattered with a butterfly pattern. I dreamed of wearing the dress back to the dome of butterflies, of being one of their own.

Day Three and Four—Benecia, CA

My first trip out of San Francisco was to the quaint little town of Benecia to visit a family friend of Maddelyn’s. I overslept and amidst the chaos of my own creation (involving the tornado of thrown clothing and the vicious breakfast throat stuffing) I forgot to be excited. It hit me as we were running to the ferry building. We needed a gift for our hostess, and we hastily stopped ourselves at a flower stand to buy daffodils. I was then a girl running in a flowing dress holding flowers, about to catch a ferry on a beautiful day. My cheesy smile outlasted everyone else on the ferry. Even with the wind and the spray of the water plotting against me, I stayed leaning over the side. I didn’t sit down until the city was out of sight, waving as though bidding goodbye to my one true love.

In Benecia I met our hostess, a delightful woman named Sheila. We were mom’d for the length of our stay, bombarded with snacks and home-cooked meals and stories and dinner time prayers. To my delight, I was also bombarded with wet dog kisses. She had two poodles and a long-haired shepherd mix, in addition to a vocal, constantly puzzled cat and a attention-seeking canary. There is nothing so soothing to the soul as gathering in the kitchen to talk, animals swarming around my feet, cooking dinner as the sun sets over California palm trees. Amidst tendrils of steam and light, I could only describe the sensation as warm.

The first day Maddelyn and I strolled in and out of blooming white cherry blossom trees on the main street of the town, peeking into antique store after antique store. We were drawn into one by the promise of old dance music cooing down a hallway. We began to dance in the doorway, and when spotted by the owner he ushered us in.

That night I spent pinned under that behemoth of a dog, and then awakened to the promise of fresh fruit and bikes on the back patio. We rode into a California state park, parked our bikes and strolled by the shore. Later Sheila dropped us off at our stop and I said my first goodbye at a train station. It was more of a hopeful “Until we meet again.”

Back in San Francisco we wandered through Fisherman’s Wharf as the sun set. The bridge was but a faint etching in the background, and the boats danced like the silhouettes of people. My heart was calm like the distant ocean yet gushing like the crash of waves underneath my feet. I watched the lights flicker on and listened to the dramatic scramble of seafood vendors. I thought of the people watching from Twin Peaks, but I couldn’t help but to smile at the smaller picture before me.

Day Five- Santa Cruz, CA

In the greatest feat of the break, Maddelyn and I made it to Santa Cruz. After a 6:30 wake up call, a 2-hour train ride and a 45-minute bus ride we finally arrived, hungry for adventure and junk food. We sang Katy Perry’s “California Girls” under our breath on the bus ride there, and in the course of the day I was anointed one.

It is repeatedly amazing to me how something so touristy somehow manages to be classy. How the grease of french fries and the drip of popsicles onto sun-kissed skin turns to magic in the current of memories. Perhaps it is the weaving of the senses, the constant reminder of where I was. All elements of a story I was free to compose as I wished. In cheesy places I find myself doing cheesy things—no running this time, but splashing and dancing and singing. I climbed cliff faces and burst through rock formations into light.

I rode on the Ferris Wheel and the Flying Dutchman and I soared over the ocean adorned with dancing sailing boats. I looked behind me and everyone would’ve looked photo-shopped had it not been for the reflection of the horizon in their eyes, their wind-whipped faces, their fearless smiles. Afterwards I wandered to a nearby lighthouse surrounded by what looked like giant corks. A brave fisherman stood calmly on the very edge, craning his neck to see what awaited him below. I could only look around and above. I stayed until sunset, watching the seagulls fly above me like last minute editions to a cheesy 3D movie. They cast momentary shadows over my face that the sun then readily scribbled back in with warmth.

On the long ride back home the last of the sunscreen wore off and the memories sunk in. Most of my life I’ve had to chase down memories. I’ve done everything in my power to tie them down, to feel them one more time. But these memories stick. Like the wet mark of a dog’s kiss in the moments right afterwards. Like the deeper feeling of sun preserved even as one reenters the shade. Like the internal feeling of butterflies when the heart is given one more environment in which to fly. After so much reaching, something has taken a hold of me. Perhaps spring break was not the only elusive one; perhaps we both finally crashed into each other at the same time. Running in a flowing dress finally got me somewhere.