Most of my family and I recently traveled to San Francisco to help our dear friend and former neighbor celebrate her 70th birthday. Several former neighbors rendezvoused there for the weekend celebration – our kids all grew up together on the same block.
This was my first time actually visiting San Francisco, although growing up in the 60’s and 70’s I had many memories of the City by the Bay, including Haight-Ashbury, hippies, Fillmore West, Summer of Love, the Grateful Dead, Dirty Harry. I rented a house in the Noe Valley neighborhood. We walked a lot all weekend – up the steep streets to Twin Peaks and down the steep streets to the Castro, the Mission District, and 24th St.
As soon as we arrived, I walked over to the birthday girl’s house. I will never forget strolling up to the intersection of Hoffman Ave and 22nd St. At the corner, I had to turn right, but the street just disappeared! The sidewalk dropped out of sight in a sharp 45-degree downhill angle. This surprised me; I’d never seen anything like this before. I had to stop, take it in, and re-assess.
All at once, I felt both old and young simultaneously.
So much of our being young is experiencing things for the first time. That’s an understandable part of ‘growing up’. So much of what I take for granted now was new to me when I was young. I remembered San Francisco as a part of my youth, even though I’d never actually been there. I felt young as I turned the corner and saw the street disappear, as I encountered this new ‘first’. It was kind of an adventure.
At the same time, as I reached the corner, stopped short, and looked down over what felt like the edge (and gasped slightly), I grabbed for the side of the building to keep my balance. I knew instinctively that I had to proceed with caution. There was no way I could just keep walking down that steep sidewalk like I would have if I were back in the 1960’s.
This was just an objective fact. I could feel the front of my calf muscles suddenly tighten, and the back of my thigh muscles strain as I took small half-steps, trying to keep my balance on that 45-degree decline. That made me feel my age.
Madeleine L’Engle said that we are always all the ages we have ever been. This makes sense, being the ‘same old same old’ and being someone new at the same time. In this context, it makes sense to actually look forward to getting older rather than just fearing or denying it, as most of us do. Yes, as we age there are changes and losses, some of them difficult, some extremely difficult. And, at the same time, there are opportunities and adventures – opportunities to get closer to being the person you’d like to be as well as opportunities to discover the person waiting to emerge.