Ocean Pants

This past weekend the world threw together a tossed salad bowl of delicious moments for me to taste. Any of the ingredients alone would’ve satisfied me, but together I reached pure, salty transcendence. I’m talking 100% concentrated magic to savor and swallow all at once. I recently joined my school’s Outdoors Club and went on a seaside hike. I felt as though I’d been gifted a VIP one-time only guest pass to such a beautiful day. I wondered how often I could gain admittance to this amphitheater of understated glory. 

We began in the Presidio and ended at the Golden Gate Bridge. This was as far as the official group planning had gone. But as alive and bursting college students often to do, the group wanted more. I thought we’d sucked the last sip from the day’s serving of fun. But alas, everyone else knew the secret—the true magic is in the very last drop. So we headed down to the water once more.

Of course the sea is beautiful to watch, like a 3D postcard and Van Gough swirls in action. But I watched everyone around me undergo a transformation. Everyone went from seeing to being.  One can only observe beauty so close at hand for so long without reaching out to touch it. The feeling is as innocent and grand as the act of falling in love. It is as whimsical as reaching into a painting and feeling that world accept you and fold around you. It is as surreal as realizing a dream is a reality you can touch, tangible proof of a lifetime of yearning.

It started when one of my friends in the club wandered near the water. She waded in until the water gently licked her knees; she was trusting, calm, peaceful. I couldn’t say the same of the first big wave that came. It ripped her off of her feet and she fell into the water. We all watched her as she righted herself and readjusted her deformed sports bra, the waves whipping mischievously around her ankles. I will always remember her next reaction, and those of the others around me. She burst out laughing and dived head on back into the water.

Soon more and more members joined her. I ran in hand in hand with two other friends, laughing and screaming as the waves knocked us over like dominos. We took turns helping each other float, tangoing to the siren call of the ocean, cheering others on as they charged into the depths. We danced on nature’s stage, we tasted that last sip on our tongues, we splashed in the wake of our dreams. They kept coming and coming.

As we dried off, we raced each other down the shoreline and kicked up sand. We laughed in the breathless way, the kind that shows the most awe, the deepest appreciation. By the time we left we looked like spotted lizards. The creases in our work out clothing looked like scales, our hair spiraled in hardened spikes, and sand still dotted everything. I could feel the sand in cuts on my lip, under my eyelashes like hastily applied makeup. It dotted my cheeks like freckles, and I wore it like a badge of honor. I found specks of it on my body, in my room, for days afterwards. I smiled at any sign of it.

This week a friend and I finished a big test and we ran into the ocean afterwards. I wore the same pants. I felt the same sticky thrill of a life converging around me. You cannot help but to change after running into the ocean. When you realize the last sip is really as vast and unending as the sea, you must thrust yourself into the postcard, the salad bowl, the taste as often as possible. It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. I love wearing signs of a dream come true up and down my sleeves. It is amazing how much hope one can draw from a single day. The world has fed me enough for years.

A Golden Gate Galentine's Day

Some days are so special that I cling to them for days afterwards, like a child would cling to the heavenly warmth of a blanket in the morning. I try to smile the same way in the mirror, or to zoom in on the pictures that captured the exquisite concentrated happiness that so many find in danger of extinction. But alas the pictures blur and pixel, and the smile is but the lingering shadow of an art that can never be recreated. Life’s sprinkled seasoning lands on select days, rendering one perfection and the next but an aftertaste. Still shall we try for one more bite?

I think of Valentine’s Day as an inventory of all the love in one’s life. Yes for some it is a romantic dinner out, for others a couple salty tears absorbed in handfuls of chocolates. But mine was a “Gal”-entine’s day to remember, my best on record. A day to squeal at the heart-shaped arrangement of york mints my room mate left on my bed, to skip arm in arm with one of my best friends (fully aware of our giggles outdoing the couples), to gift handmade cards and receive homegrown hugs. A day to bulge from happiness, not only the chocolate in my stomach.

The day began with coordinating pale pink dresses and hats and smiles. My friend Maddelyn and I set off for a breakfast in Golden Gate park, stopping to fluff our hair and fan out our dresses for an impromptu photo shoot in the gardens. From there we headed to the Mission for dance lessons. We were half way through the first one (some kind of fusion Jazz dance), still loving the nature of our flowing dresses, when the instructor began teaching floor work. So we gulped and still tried to do the dolphin dives, our dresses colored by the little black specks of the floor. We laughed breathlessly when we managed to stand up again without flashing the constantly running video camera. Next was belly dancing, taught by a beautiful Russian woman that put our hips to shame. She passed out waist scarves with coins that caught the shine of the spotlight on the stage. What I didn’t have naturally in skill (which was a lot) I made up for with those coins, each time taking a louder, sassier step forward.

Each step made in the Mission district is like entering a different dimension. We slid from mural to mural, backdrops to the passerby that reflected in expressions in different ways. We happened into two stores that were nothing like they appeared. One, painted like an English cottage on the outside, complete with caged birds and elegant vines, was in fact home to exotic cacti, taxidermy, and the Edgar Allen Poe type of odd. Every corner bulged with bones, horse heads turned unicorn, mice dressed up as cowboys. Next door was 826 Valencia, a nonprofit tutoring agency that was forced to sell a product in order to remain in the building. Of all things to choose, they selected pirate paraphernalia.

Next Maddelyn and I headed to the beach by the Golden Gate Bridge. Hundreds of people swirled about, hand in hand, hearts clear to see in their faces. The city was an open book, each passerby with a story easily revealed. The silhouettes of couples dotted the edge of the gentle waves right as the sky ripped open its seams. The sunset could not have been a greater tribute to the day. The pinks and purples oozed over the beating red of the bridge. My heart wiped everything clean in that moment, just to store that sky. I could feel the photographic quality of the night around me, and I danced into my own memories. Maddelyn and I spread our arms for a silhouette shot, and I could not help but to think of The Notebook line “Say I’m a bird!” But honestly, I couldn’t dream of flying away. It felt as though I’d just landed.

We returned to the school for chocolate and chic flicks. But even movie watching changes after such a day. It changed because for once my day could compete. For once my silhouette marked the horizon of a dream, bursting and brightening the lives of lovers and friends and families and humans for miles and miles. It goes to show happiness is in the air, always ready to hold your hand. Perhaps it is not so much that happiness is going extinct, but that most do not know of its habitat. It is just another dimension you must slip into, just another jingling coin belly dance away. It will not be made accessible by only the chocolate, the movies, even the lover. For me it was opened by a friend, as if she had ripped open the sky herself. But once it’s opened, embraced in its pure form, it takes days to run its profound course. I’m still licking my lips.

“Don” Stop Believing

 This Saturday I traveled back to my lovely, wacky city. I have never walked through the DIA airport with such purpose. Even the act of stuffing my face with a bagel was an act of celebration, sitting underneath the blinking sign “San Francisco.” I took a shuttle back to the school after I arrived, and unfortunately I was the last to be dropped off. We circled the neighborhoods surrounding the campus making various stops, but all the while I maintained eye contact with my school, my castle on a hill. Oh how it still puts everything in its midst to shame. Oh how glorious it feels to be even a small part of it.

 While I was temporarily locked out of my dorm room (ID card reactivation) I reentered the hearts of my friends freely. Though the good-byes were sad, the hellos were almost worth the separation.  We kicked off the new semester by attempting to be sporty and spirited and attended our first USF basketball game. We mostly mimicked the cheerleader dances, and lowered ourselves in the bleachers to the Cha Cha Slide, marveling at the instantaneous response to “Everybody clap your hands!” Like the rhythm of the city, the flow of the song was enveloping, the excitement everywhere yet no where identifiable, the happiness lyrical and pure.

 In the last seconds of the game we shouted as loud as the team’s own coach as the opponent recovered the ball and won the game by one point. But with our spirit barely scathed we resolved to track down our arguably creepy mascot, the “don.” We spent half of the game evaluating the shrivels of his arms and the beady nature of his eyes. Not that it stopped us from taking that awkward mascot picture that any true college student must have.


The next day I ventured with friends into Hayes Valley. It is an up-and-coming part of town sprouting from the destruction of an overpass highway in the last big earthquake. But this gem of an area seems to have beamed and burst and widened as quickly as a smile on a child’s face. We walked amongst quirky, zigzagging trees that seemed to drift along the sidewalk like people. They were certainly dressed like people, many covered with the hippie attempts and failures of knitting groups gone wild. Our destination was the 21st Century Café, adorned with delicate silverware, decadent hanging lights, and delightful afternoon personalities in search of treats galore. I ordered a cup of hot butterscotch, though I asked for a description of each dessert. Who needs a sample when the descriptions alone are every bit as delectable?

 To the dismay of my friends I hiked my sturdy Colorado lungs right up a series of hills to Alamo Square, the home of the painted ladies. One would think there was a light display, a concert, something to explain the huge gathering of picnic blankets, slobbering dogs and cuddling couples. But nope, no event but the every day spectacle of the city, as picturesque as a postcard, as prolific as a novel, as profound as the strokes of an Impressionist’s canvas. Hundreds of locals gather there every weekend, for some beauty just never becomes commonplace.

Here I walk the hills like mountains, sit in my hilltop classrooms like a queen, beam at my friends as though we never have been nor never will be apart. The sparkle of the city is never far away, calling out to me like a pile of jewels I have yet to try on. My smile is as wide as the creepy mascot, and I feel as though every moment of every day here is a slam-dunk in a game I cannot lose. I know I can always cha cha back here, right back home.

Legos, Luggage, and Line Dancing

Before leaving for San Francisco I planned one last blow out weekend with my Colorado friends, living a day in each of their lives at their Colorado colleges. I was strangely excited to crash on college floors—my dad says if I want to be an adventurer I should embrace it. So I took the rather unsociable cold shoulder of the floor as a right of passage. The beginning of years of drifting. My life has been thrown up in the air and no part of it knows where to land yet. So I float to people, not so much places. To whichever friend and whichever floor will take me.

I began my college weekend at the University of Denver, meeting one of my friends to head up to the University of Colorado at Boulder. Coincidentally my friend’s name is Aleks and she ran into two DU students also named Alex riding the same bus. So began the adventures of Hannah and the Three Alexs. We arrived at the campus luggage in tow. Of course I wanted to swing my bags easily under my arms, perhaps dance and sing “I have Confidence!” like Maria from the Sound of Music. Instead I barely managed to save my luggage from a seemingly targeted bike attack. I never knew the stereotypical chilled out hipster CU student could pedal that angrily. But that frisky spurting energy was everywhere. Even the steps of my friend were different, overconfident then indecisive, bold and brave then flighty.

Building at CU Boulder

University of Denver Campus

Over the course of the weekend I toured both the CU Boulder and DU campus extensively, trying to open every locked entrance, creeping through every cracked door. We danced on amphitheater stages, gave pretend lectures in classrooms, stared in awe at the 3D printer in the school store. At CU Boulder we located a mini museum, complete with a moon rock, a room of old cheerleading uniforms, and most importantly a lego recreation of the entire school. At DU we ate at the original Chipotle and experimented with the library system of moving bookcases. They fold around you like the closing corridors of an ever-shifting maze.

But by far the best part of my trip, something I didn’t even know I’d signed up for until I was on the bus heading there, was an impromptu night of Contra Dancing. I would love to say I was a natural. But there were only 10 people in the lesson portion, meaning the instructor easily picked out my clumsy steps. I was chastised for not making enough eye contact, something my huge eyes have always been more than capable of doing. So I set myself to embodying this Jane Austen novel dance, deciding to stare down the night.

I danced every single dance for the 3 hours we were there. One of my friends got motion sickness after the first dance while others found themselves tired and wandered off. Even when cramps tickled my sides, even when my boots were scuffed and stepped on, even when I told myself for sure I would sit the next one out, I could never resist an outstretched hand. My heart whined like a dog scratching at a door, overflowing into dance after dance.

Over the course of the night I met one of the owners as well as many dedicated attendees, older dance partners that had been going every month for some 30 years. They taught me so much, each bringing with him a different energy, a different rowdy eloquence. At the end of the night a few of my partners came up to me and congratulated me on how far I had come, remarking that I had my own formidable energy.

Part of the dance was mastering the moves, but part of it was the magic of being pulled along, as though by a fast paced spurting river I knew would never hurt me. While most recommend eye contact while swinging with a partner, I embraced the dizziness, so entranced by my surroundings I wanted to affirm that I wasn’t indeed in a fairy tale. For one of the dances I partnered up with a college friend, and neither of us could master the steps. Strangely enough it was one of my favorite dances. We laughed the whole time, as each experienced dancer whispered quickly in our ear what motion to make next. At another point I completely missed my partner’s hand and went flying out of the line. His response was a comical "You’re LOST IN SPACE!!!!”


The next day I returned to dragging around luggage, nothing but a soreness in my legs and a goofy smile on my face as proof of the weekend. I’d parted with the floor, and braced myself for the parting with my friends. Drifting, following, dodging crazed bikers, dancing the night away. It is quite a life. I know that with such memories, and with such places to go, I’ll never truly be lost in space. I’ll be pulled into a spontaneous dance by the people I love, on a dance floor wherever it is we all land. Who knows if we will have mastered all the moves by then, but if it doesn’t matter in Contra dancing how can it in life? We’ll remember these years as intricately constructed lego models, every piece somehow clicking into place. And we’ll continue to dance to every song.

A Stroke of Local Color

 San Francisco is known architecturally for its row after row of colorful little houses. But it is the people and their colorful little hearts that make the city all it is. They come in all different designs, all with different trimmings and rough edges. But they all stick out like the houses dotting the San Francisco hills—filled to the brim with personality, brightening the days of others, bulging against the foggy gray of the sky. They ooze out of city streets, adding true San Francisco flavor to any outing.

I’d like to profile a few of these fine fellows, the first whom I’ve come to know and love as Statue Man. He’s one of the many street performers that mark the corners of Fisherman’s Wharf. Statue Man stands still for hours and hours, shifting slightly to test the sanity of passerby that do double takes. He wears sunglasses to hide what I can only imagine must be twitching eyes. No smile on a statue that I have ever seen looks that worn out, as though the sculptor forgot to smooth his hand over the edges. But even Statue Man finds a way of amusing himself in his job. I’ve seen countless kids get too close, straining to touch him. He will then jerk suddenly to loom over them, breaking into a crazed theatrical smile that is menacingly real. The children run screaming and Statue Man reaches his hand out to the parent, wiggling his fingertips for the money.

 I went with a friend to what SF calls their annual “Trolley Dances.” In a series of dances set in varied city locations, different dance troupes redefined public art. From Latin choreography danced along walls to dancers rolling down hills, the audience did not know where the performers would appear. The funniest of these began with two dancers sleeping—in the middle of the road. Slowly they awakened and others appeared. The event planners obviously did not think of posting signage to alert the cars of the neighborhood. As women were thrown into the air and men lunged underneath to catch them, cars screeched to a stop all around them. They danced, after all, in the middle of an intersection. The reaction of the cars was half of the show. Stubbornly they would try and inch around the dancers, then fail and dramatically throw the car into reverse. One angrily backed up the entire length of the street. The best moments were those in which the dancers winked and waved to them goodbye.

As the audience waited for the bus to take them to the next dance, a scrawny man whistled to gain everyone’s attention. He began to perform the usual, juggling, magic tricks, fire. He knew the huge audience wasn’t going anywhere. In fact, he just might have been following us awaiting his opportunity. He purposefully jumped in front of cars, performing tricks right over their hoods and then acting hurt when they sped away. He didn’t speak a word until he saw our bus turning the corner. He then shoved his hat into the crowd, delivering a monologue beginning with “I’m an Italian immigrant!!!” in an accent I could not quite deem real. When he’d collected his money, he threw his hat back on his head, placed his tricks back in a bag, and just like that blended in with a crowd turning the corner. He didn’t look back. 

The local color is by no means limited to people. I waited for a bus by a very comical little fellow, a pug tied to a post waiting for its owner. He was cute enough, with a characteristic smashed face. But everyone who passed greeted that dog by name. Everyone! He just sat there lazily wagging his tail against the ground, tilting his head at his groupies, his fan club members, his unending popularity. San Francisco is no small town, but there I was petting the city dog. I ended up meeting the owner before my bus came. She shrugged at his fame as well. She said the dog even had a Twitter page. She mentioned they went every month to the San Francisco tradition “Pug Sunday.” If you’re a pug lover, San Francisco is the right city for you! Owners gather in a park and show off their overweight, drooling, famous little furry friends. Imagine that.

My favorite encounter with a local thus far followed the Disney symphony I went to see downtown with some friends. In the mood, we sang some of the songs as we waited at the bus stop. One of these was “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast. Gradually our remembrance of the words puttered out, and we stopped. There was a man, completely ordinary looking, waiting for the bus as well. He looked to be in his thirties, wore a backpack and glasses, and he ever so often adjusted his ear buds as he scrolled through a menu on his phone. But just as we stopped singing, he took off his headphones and burst into the rest of “Be Our Guest,” complete with the accent of the character and a dramatic dance of the eyebrows. My friends and I only stared, until he finished the very last line and we applauded. In response he said, in a somewhat choked up voice “I’m sorry, it was just such…a beautiful…show!!!” He turned away again, put his ear buds back in, and resumed his scrolling.

Random people, little experiences, short hiccups and heart beats of the city. Freckles on the blushing face of San Francisco, not always visible but noticeable if you take the time to look. I’ve come to worship them, to hope in the moments before I walk out my door that there is some short story to mark the passage of another day. I’m sure one day I’ll walk straight into a future character of one of my novels, and he’ll charm me as all of these people (and pets) have done. It would be sad to think in a city of so many people, our lives don’t intersect every once and a while.  Because even strangers have the power to touch our lives in big ways.

Just as it takes many colorful houses to distinguish a hill, it takes seeking out many lively personalities to brighten a life. Even if that means venturing out without knowing whom you’ll encounter along the way. Those are the experiences the most worth singing and dancing about—those are the beautiful shows of humanity. So find the twitching statue and sleeping leaping dancers and the Italian immigrant and the local dog and the Disney singer. Every life needs a sprinkle of eccentricity.

A Glowing 2014

“To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life” –The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

2014 leaves yet remains some how, like a great love I can never forget. This is the year I graduated, the year I started college. But those words seem empty, the accomplishments void of emotion, like describing a loved one as tall and brunette and brown eyed. There is so much more. This is the year I became bolder and my eyes brighter. It is the year I moved into the city of my snow globe and exploded my horizon. It is the year I found my transplant San Francisco family, the ones that makes the city as beautiful as it is. I regret leaving this year, as though I were moving out of a home that saw so many memories created. But in the end each home, each year, is but a structure made special by the people in its midst.

This night last year I had no idea what was in store for me. I didn’t know I could love, or be loved as much as I have been. I didn’t know how hopeful and tragic a goodbye could be until I waved goodbye to my friends and family. I didn’t know how glorious a hello could be until I first met the fellow students that would change my life. I’d never before felt the ache, not to praise myself, but to show my unadulterated love for the many special people in my life. My life is blessed by none of my own doing.

When my family gathered for Christmas, my cousin told me that I was glowing. I’ve had some time to contemplate this. I’d never been told this before. My happiness was always the quiet kind. Now it seems I cannot keep it in. I have stories worthy of telling. But I realize in the night sky of my life, I am not the shining star. I am the lucky wanderer, my face illuminated by the brilliant glow of the stars, the people around me. The memory of them ignites every story I have. They beam and burst and brighten my big eyes. Their light marks the skylines of the two cities I move between. I glow because of their presence.

Everything and everyone I love is fastened in the snow globe of my heart. It shakes with the buzz of cable cars and the passionate red beat of bridges. It echoes with the steady fast call back home, to mountains and memories. 2014 is etched in the San Francisco sand, faded by the tide but remembered by the feel of footprints. Here no earthquake will shake my resolution to love my friends, my angels, the characters of my life for as long as I can. 

“To see the world.” In 2014 I lived intertwined in the intimacies and intricacies of San Francisco. But I learned that the hearts of others make the most beautiful destinations.

“Things dangerous to come to.” I moved alone to a huge city, making the biggest decision of my life. The first step is the hardest. But I’ve learned it only takes one big decision to change everything.  It only takes one decision to glow.

 “To see behind walls.” This year was more than a structure, more than walls—it was defined by the people that filled them, and the ways we ventured outside of them. I’ve learned it doesn’t matter which city I’m in, there’s a story out there and a person worth living it with.

“To draw closer.” I’ve drawn closer to myself and my dream. I scream my happiness aloud, and it is a miracle to have stumbled upon the right path, every step in the right direction, lighted by my stars.

“To find each other and to feel.” Somehow I have found others. My friends and family are lighthouses that beacon to me as I travel across the sea. My newfound friends are ships that will sail with me to the end of the world. I cannot thank them enough. No night of my life is dark.

“That is the purpose of life.”

A Tale of Two Cities

Before leaving for Colorado, I met with a couple friends for one last San Francisco brunch. We laughed over the semester, each story with an undertone of thankfulness that we had changed and for the better. One of my friends chuckled and said to me that I was going to see Denver with all new eyes. This, he’d find not the least bit surprising to know, has proved truer than I anticipated.

Reentering Denver I treated it as I had San Francisco. I crept around corners, charged into stores, shook the city like a child would shake his toy box. It seems I have a restlessness and eagerness instilled in me, together like a time bomb ticking down to when I will have my next adventure. My friend and I wove in and out of the Christmas lights of 16^th Street Mall. Denver’s beauty is nothing if not classy, and it touches the heart in a different way. It’s polite, always asks permission, but serenades one with its own tune.

 We found an ice skating rink nestled by the Clock tower. The sweet, charming appearance of the rink quickly became a series of dives to the rim as children literally raged a war in the middle. Someone at some point in time had the idea of giving children barricade-like structures to learn how to skate with. I have never seen children more empowered. They threw their barricades at each other. They purposefully charged in large groups, attacks and counter attacks that almost took me down as the first of the casualties.

Afterwards, still in search of a destination, we stumbled upon the Union Station turned into a hotel, illuminated with a Christmas shine. Its presence triggered a San Franciscan empowerment, an elation that comes with each step. The sense that one is so close to a story, in such a special place, that no step can be in the wrong direction. We walked inside. We watched a Christmas party send laughter out into the cold night. We feasted on the feel of the air. We stepped into an elevator, stirring an excitement now so familiar and so essential to my life.

Overlooking Union Square in San Francisco there’s a hotel with a glass elevator. For years it’s been closed to tourists, and for months my friends and I dreamed of sneaking in, rising above the glimmer of lights and rhythm of passerby. Finally, the night before I left, we were successful. We stepped in with a big group of guests, side glanced each other, and tried not to burst out laughing. The city expanded underneath us like a pop up book. Sure enough, we needed a room key to bring the elevator back to the 1^st floor. We were stuck. Oh, but what a beautiful place to be stuck. 

The feeling is not in the jolt of the elevator. The joy is not even in the physical beauty of the view. The elation is in the action, in the smile as long as the skyline, the eyes as bright as any skyscraper. A city, whether it be San Francisco or Denver, is a dare to be all that one can be. It is a challenge to find happiness in each step, in any direction. The key is to fling oneself into a city with the carelessness and spirit of a child, even without a barricade. If one ends up pinned under a pile of children on an ice skating rink, or closed in an elevator, so be it. Happiness is never stuck for long.