Burn Season

It's that time of year when San Francisco empties out. Burners have been building human-sized cat trees or gigantic flaming metal sculptures for months and are ready to transport them to Black Rock Dessert for the annual burning of the man. This year is no different. There are Burning Man virgins in my circle making the trek, pulling their costumes together and buying their goggles.

But, what is different about this year is that there is a real serious burn happening, too. The Rim Fire, as its been touted, is ravaging the Sierra Nevadas and wreaking havoc on my family and thousands of other residents of the area. While I remember many summers when fires affected the area - it is a dry climate after all - the fires never got so close. Scary.

Reasons I Love SF: Sailing

Tiburon is a quaint little town on the coast of the North Bay, with a cute downtown, running and walking paths, and probably residents have a really great quality of life. Especially because they have to have money to live there... At any rate, I enjoy taking periodic trips up to Tiburon, either to visit Angel Island or to just make a day of it, taking in the sights, sounds and drinks of the town.

On this trip, I was able to stay at the Water's Edge, a great spot overlooking the harbor and San Francisco sky-line for some. You can see my view (at 5:30am no less) in the photo set below. In addition to taking full advantage of what the hotel had to offer, including a great wine and cheese happy hour, I went running along the lagoon with a friend, ate at Sam's (of course), and went for a sail on the Bay. It was dreamy...

Reasons I Love SF: Generosity

As I spend time looking for jobs in philanthropy or the social sector in Los Angeles, and as the holidays continue, I regularly ponder over the fact that people in San Francisco are givers. At least in my circle. We give our time and money to causes that are designed to improve our communities or the world. We share cars and baby gear and books. In the interest of enhancing what we've learned through our own experiences or making sure our younger co-workers don't have to go through the same hells we've been through, we talk a lot about breaking down silos and we share our knowledge. All things that tend to make me think that people in San Francisco are innately generous.

This belief has been especially enhanced by people I've seen, heard or read lately that live here or at least nearby. For example, yesterday I rode the N Judah Muni to the Renegade Craft Fair and in the 25 minute ride downtown, I witnessed not less than five occurrences of people offering their seats to the elder patrons on-board. On my way back home, I witnessed a guy leaping after someone getting off the train to ensure that whatever the disembarker had dropped did not get left behind. Of course, people embracing the Christmas Spirit does not mean that they are innately generous, I know.

But, you may remember a recent mention of 2,500 people giving enough money to raise $11,600 for Make a Wish at a concert. Of course, I'm sure everyone didn't give but, I gave $3, my companion gave $3 and according to the Conductor, if everyone who was there gave $3 we would have raised $7,500. So, that means that the people who donated gave more than $3. Similarly, at a fundraiser that I participated in earlier this season, we only expected 30 attendees to an event that ended up being sold out and where we raised over $5,000 from women and men who believe in reproductive justice.

But, it's not all about donating money to good causes or giving up a seat on a bus. When I say San Francisco is generous, I'm  talking about the neighbor in SOMA who asked someone selling Street Sheet outside of Whole Foods how he was doing and if he had been warm enough as late, since it had been raining. I'm talking about friends and family who posted and rallied behind a woman who had been having a very rough month, getting mugged for her iPhone and denied twice by book publishers. "Keep on truckin'" one Facebooker posted in response. And, I'm talking about the time I lost my wallet in the Mission and someone went through the trouble to contact me using some serious detective powers.

San Francisco is not the only generous place on the planet. I've lived in Wisconsin, where people actually smile and say hi to strangers daily. But, for a city, it certainly feels like its more generous than others. And, for a city in a country that is becoming more generous to the planet it dwells on every day, teaching its kids more and more about giving back, and trying to get back to what made the country great in the first place, it seems that San Francisco may be a leader in all these regards.

Reasons I Love SF: Community

When I moved to San Francisco in March 2002, it felt like 2,000 miles away from San Jose where I moved from and still went to work every day. My only friend was my roommate, a former classmate from photography class at the Academy of Art. And, my goal was to disappear and live my life as invisibly as possible. It was easy to succeed in the beginning.

After four years of living in the Upper Haight, just two blocks from Haight and Ashbury, I had finally gotten a job in San Francisco and was starting to make friends and getting to know neighborhoods other than my own. By befriending some colleagues who lived nearby and putting my past hermit behaviors aside, I soon became entrenched in the Upper Haight life. I spent evenings at a local watering hole and quickly got to know some of the Upper Haight characters, running into many of them even when I was trying to be inconspicuous. By this point, I had a desire for "community" but, also really enjoyed being able to fade out, holing up in my apartment and turning off my phone at regular intervals.

When I moved to the Sunset almost two years ago, it was not a coincidence that I picked a street-facing apartment with great big windows pulling in the sunlight and views of people outside. I had spent the previous year and a half in a tiny studio below Twin Peaks, where I left my friends at the door or the curb and sunk into solitude by simply closing my door to the world, which I couldn't see from my windows that faced a walkway between apartment buildings. Moving into a bustling neighborhood again excited me and moving into my fabulous one-bedroom made me eager to invite friends in and share my space more.

I tell this story because, one of the reasons I love San Francisco is for the communities that exist when one opens themselves up to them. My desire to build a community of diverse friends and chosen family has been strong for years, and after eleven years of building just such a community, I worry about leaving it behind. My most profound example of the community I'm a part of and truly love is the one that got together yesterday on a hill in Cesar Chavez Park, at the Berkeley Marina.

Almost a month ago, one of our colleagues and friends passed away from ovarian cancer. In the days that followed, I cried and mourned the loss of someone I wanted to know better than I did. She reached out to me before her diagnosis via a group email and I gasped and sobbed alone in my room. A group of us sent her a care package thinking she would be around for decades longer than her 34 years. It was a shock when I saw the Facebook post that she had passed two weeks after a mutual friend and I talked about the lesion they found in her liver. "Don't worry" our friend urged in a Facebook response to her partner's plea for prayers. "We're going after it more aggressively."

She was someone who lit up a room and made me want to be a better person. That afternoon on the hill, friends who hadn't seen one another in up to four years told stories of her. We held hands and hugged and were grateful that we were together even though the reason for it was unwanted and the loss of one of us was devastating. After a few hours of tears and laughter and a moving story of her last days told by her partner, we shared "epic food" in a bungalow in North Berkeley. I felt surrounded by giants.

That community makes it very hard to leave. But, I know that there will be visits and emails and phone calls. Because community is something that can be carried along, no matter where one goes.

Reasons I Love SF: Holidays Continued

In my last post, I had not yet gone to see this year's wonderful San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus Santa Concert at the Davies Symphony Hall. Therefore, I neglected to talk about one of my personal favorite holiday traditions that I have started in the past five years. This year's was the best, by far, for three reasons:

1) A friend who sings in the Chorus got me a ticket in the Orchestra section in row N. It was pretty much the perfect spot to watch the concert from. Not right on the stage and not too far back. Plus, I happened to sit next to the lyricist of one of the songs the Chorus sang called Christmas by the Bay. So, the friend I sat with and I were smiling most of the time.

2) The concert raised funds for Make a Wish. There were 2,500 people in the audience including many Make a Wish kids and their families (and a Make a Wish kid in the Chorus). While I may not select that charity for my personal giving, it was pretty amazing that the Chorus raised $11,600 in one night by making a simple ask. Before announcing the amount raised, the conductor said, "I love being here in San Francisco."

3) The theatricality of this particular show was great. To paraphrase another friend, the first half of the performance show-cased the talent of the magnificent Chorus, focusing on songs. But, the second half of the show highlighted their ability to entertain. There was a brilliant Broadway Medley with Christmas songs sung to the tune of many favorite show-tunes (from Wicked, Phantom, and Rent to name a few). It was so much fun!

So, as I ramp up my shopping and endure the end of year crunch at work, I think about how much I enjoy the annual SFGMC holiday concert and how I want to continue this tradition in year's to come no matter where I live.

Oh, And...

In related but not local news. Just before the show started, one of our party who happens to be from New York gave us the news that New York passed a Same Sex Marriage Bill, making it the largest state to do so. After some drama, this was a welcome announcement, last night! California, what are you doing?...

Making our Environment Vital

This week, a work team that we're calling the BEaT Team (I can never remember what it stands for aside from that we're focusing on beautification and creating efficiencies in the Thoreau Center), met with our consultants, three super-fun guys who have a very interesting business called VITAL environments. I'm very excited about what we're called to do with the consultants and can't wait to learn more about how to make a work environment more inviting and lively and the staff working there more productive and focused. The Vital team is made up of an architect, a mechanical engineer and a human interaction specialist, all whom bring very different views to the same goal of making people work better, with more integrated fun while conserving energy and other resources. More to come!

Children in Zimbabwe and Imports from Scotland

This evening, my friend from work joined me for an interesting documentary screening at the World Affairs Council. The Council's walls are currently featuring artwork from women in Zimbabwe, which was appropriate to the topic at hand and beautifully displayed present day issues and daily life for Zimbabweans. We heard from a South African filmmaker Xoliswa Sithole about her film Zimbabwe's Forgotten Children and the effects of Mugabe's regime on children, including the demise of a once robust education system and the increase in HIV/AIDS-related illness and deaths in the country. Xoliswa was inspiring and candid about the very complex feelings she holds about Zimbabwe's and Africa's biggest problems. It was not the first time I heard that Africans need to help Africans, foreign aid is not helping but, it was the first time I heard it said using the very frank words she used.

After watching the film, to lighten our mood just a bit, my friend and I wandered into a nearby shop that sells imports from Scotland, Ireland and England. My friend being from England she was highly amused and proclaimed that you would never see something like this in Britain. I did not find a sprig of lucky heather as I'd hoped but, we laughed at the novelty of such a place. Of note, apparently this is a chain that can be found in the US, Canada and Scotland

Goldman Prize, Again

For the fourth year, I had the great honor of being invited to attend the Goldman Environmental Prize and was (as always) blown away by the work the winners are doing and their amazing enthusiasm. It's always inspiring and always a truly beautiful evening. I'm grateful to my friends who have kept me on the invite list for the past several years!

This year, much of the event was spent honoring the recently passed Richard Goldman, the co-founder of the prize. There have been special guests in the past (Robert Redford, Arnold Schwarzenegger, former prize winner Wangari Maathai) but, this year, the focus was really on the family and Richard Goldman, with good reason.

This year, I was very moved by Ursula Sladek, a German former teacher who helped her community buy out the energy grid and now is the head of the first cooperatively owned renewable power supply company, in Germany. Her video showed her humility and sense of humor and when she walked on stage with walking sticks I felt her strength! I also appreciated Hilton Kelley who used to live in San Francisco but, moved back to his hometown of Port Arthur, Texas to help children and families fight the illness causing pollution of that community which borders several petro-chemical plants.

While I never end up snapping photos, the event is something I will never forget and will come back to again and again to inspire myself toward action in this big, big world!

Rough Day

After a week of heat that reddened my shoulders and brought sweat to my knees, it seems that Fall has fallen. Today, my shirt and jacket were too thin, my jeans too tight and cold, and my bare hair too wind blown.

I spent lunch eating Pluto's with friends talking about internships in Nicaragua, creating cross-enterprise collaborative relationships, and far away leadership seminars in paradise. One of my favorite things about living in San Francisco and working in a non-profit foundation is this -- having meaningful dream-filled conversations with colleagues that I call my friends.

Local terror

In reading An Interrupted Life, the diaries of Etty Hillesum, a Jewish woman from Amsterdam who died in the Holocaust, this line stuck out for me:

"...That doesn't mean you have to be half-hearted; on the contrary, you must make a stand, wax indignant at times, try to get to the bottom of things. But indiscriminate hatred is the worst thing there is. It is a sickness of the soul..."

She then proceeds to describe her views of seeing a nation as an undifferentiated mob rather than individual people. I wonder if this man had seen photos of each individual he wished to harm in this terribly scary attempt at "revolution", if he would have stopped thinking of "us" as an undifferentiated mob of nameless faceless "left-wing conspirators" trying to take over the government.

The nation's polarization is scaring me.

Brilliant Ladies

Tonight was a meeting of some of the same great minds that made Cinco de My Friend's House happen a couple months ago. Five (and then six over the phone for a bit) of us met up on Eddy Street to share delicious food and hear about this.

My social media expert friend told us stories of how she shared the Social Forum tour schedule via Twitter and showed us an iPhone video of her train ride cross country to Detroit. A second friend from work told us about another amazing female co-worker from the former Soviet Union who has overcome a lot and is a real role model. And yet another friend from work told us about one of her favorite workshops at the Forum where the presenters talked about something we all suffer from as individuals, "movement makers" and communities: historic amnesia. Some of my favorite quotes of the evening were:
-Let's build "beloved communities".
-"One thing I learned from my time at Burning Man was that we're all burning, you might as well BURN BRIGHT!"
-We have to remember what we're doing here because otherwise we get buried in the weeds.

There were more amazing quotes but, I couldn't write them all down. At any rate, it turned my week from a 5 up to at least a 9! What can't we do if we collaborate and talk to each other about how we want to be the change we see in the world.

Check out this taste of what sounded like an amazing Detroit!

This is just a sampling of what the two women who attended USSF were talking about when they shared their experiences:

USSF People's Movement Assemblies: Easy as ABC! from US Social Forum on Vimeo.

Compost

San Francisco is a city committed to zero waste. It's the first major city to offer composting pick up at homes and business and to actually institute a mandatory recycling and composting ordinance. All apartment dwellers, home owners and business owners are supposed to use the green bin for all food related waste. My building does not have a compost bin but, I refuse to be waylaid by this. Instead I store my compostables in my freezer until pick up day. Then I either throw my bags on the curb or in some neighbors' green bin...

Cinco de Friend's House

This Cinco de Mayo was spent eating delicious Mexican inspired food with friends from work and talking about interesting topics including (but not limited to by any stretch): how we each view feminism, the Third Wave Foundation, and the US Social Forum.

It was interesting to learn how the different generations represented learned and felt about the word "feminism". My generation, Generation X, had differing opinions but, most of us shared the sentiment that it has a bad connotation based on how the generations before ours used the term. Those folks that are part of the Millenial Generation had a different view, not necessarily seeing it as "bad" but not representative of the multi-layered issue of gender that is impacted by race, class and sexual orientation among other things.

It's been awhile since I've spent hours discussing ideas and ideals like that. Truly a great way to spend the Cinco de Mayo holiday!

Green 11

A few weekends ago, on my way to the new Whole Foods in Noe Valley, I stumbled upon Green 11. Apparently, Rainbow Grocery has a bulk laundry/cleaning product section that I've walked through but, never actually noticed. Anyway, this is the same idea but in a nicer neighborhood and closer to home, for me. They sell bulk refills of a lot of good natural products so not only am I supporting a local distributor but, I'm also buying organic and re-using my containers! This is one of those places that I can totally appreciate and want to support. The best part? I spent less money as I would have on new bottles of green laundry detergent and dish washing soap!

The Soloist

Four and a half years ago, a colleague of mine at ITVS (who happened to be from LA), forwarded me an LA Times article about Nathanial Anthony Ayers, who was recently spotlighted in the film, The Soloist. I just watched the movie and while I was at first suspect about Hollywood making a movie about a homeless man with mental illness, it receives 4 stars in my book. The movie made me think about the homeless people I try to ignore every day and the ongoing homeless issue in San Francisco. It made me think about how Mr. Ayers' life has changed and how many lives remain confused and lonely.

I also recalled a series of articles that were published the same year as the LA Times article about Ayers. Mayor Gavin Newsom started a program called Care Not Cash when he was elected back in 2004. The other day, I had lunch with one of my colleagues who passes out food with a self-proclaimed Punk Priest. There are so many people trying to help but, San Francisco's homeless population continues to rise.

Haiti

One of the big reasons I like working in a non-profit is the people I work with all want to make an impact on the world we live in. Whether that be by helping promote change in our government or by helping feed the rural poor, we all want to make this world a better place to live in, fundamentally.

Everyone has heard about the earthquake in Haiti, by now. A former colleague of mine is in Jacmel right now. She stopped off on her way to a wedding in the British Virgin Islands. She left a hotel in Port au Prince the day before the earthquake demolished it. She’s ready to leave but there still isn’t a way out.

At any rate, I’m proud to say that some of my organization’s donors are pooling their money in a fund that we administer, called the Relief and Reconstruction Fund. One of our major donors recommended $600,000.00 worth of grants to large aid organizations yesterday for this cause. When Katrina happened, it felt so far away and I don’t remember feeling like I could make a difference. Same when Myanmar suffered from a tsunami and China was hit with a large earthquake shortly thereafter.

With this earthquake, I feel like I’m part of a community of people who care and are doing something about it. It makes me feel proud of my organization and the community of people I’m a part of. Maybe it’s because we’re reading our friend’s daily blog posts, maybe it’s because some of our staff have a real connection to Haiti, maybe it’s because Haiti is like the dog that keeps getting kicked when it’s down. Maybe it’s all of the above. All I know is I and my friends and colleagues are awake to this tragedy. It is not lost on what we are capable of.

Maps for blind people

Who knew that spatial organization is not lost on blind people? Quest recently aired an amazing radio show talking about how this San Francisco based organization is helping blind people to “see” where they’re going. I especially love when a young woman exclaims, “Market Street is at an angle! I always thought I just had a bad sense of direction!”