Recently, most of my family and I 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 SF, although growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, 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 VRBO house in the Noe Valley neighborhood. All weekend we walked a lot — up the steep streets to Twin Peaks and down the steep streets to the Castro, the Mission District and 24th Street.
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 Avenue and 22nd Street. At the corner, I had to turn right, but the street disappeared! The sidewalk just dropped out of sight in a sharp 45-degree downhill angle. This took me by surprise, I’d never seen anything quite like this before. I had to stop, take it in and reassess.
All at once, I felt both old and young.
So much of our being young is experiencing things for the first time, part of “growing up.” So much of what I take for granted now was a new thing 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, as I encountered this new ‘first.’ It was kind of an adventure.
At the same time, as I reached the corner and 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 that I could just keep walking down that steep sidewalk like I would have done if I was back in the ’60s.
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. It makes sense being the “same old same old” and being someone new, both 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.