Good Things Dreaming Along the Golden Gate

Even on a cloudy day in San Francisco, what may seem like a listless day on the surface has the possibilities for something epic to happen. It doesn’t happen every day but on some days I wonder if I will get to witness something or be a part of something truly epic. Half the satisfaction I feel comes from the journey in search of an epic life for these epic moments.

And so it was on this particular Sunday in early March, when it had been raining almost every day for the past week. At another time and place, I may have been upset by it. While I love the rain, and especially storms, a respite of sunshine always helps me appreciate the downpour more. I was scheduled to go on a “photo-walk”, a tour I had signed up for, the extension to a photography class I had taken a month ago. I was to walk along the Golden Gate Bridge with a group of other neophyte photographers accompanied by a professional who would guide us through taking pictures of the iconic bridge during sunset. It was raining. There was no sunset with the onslaught of clouds blanketing the sky. And class must have been rescheduled.

I didn’t see anyone.

That didn’t stop me.

So I went on my own tour.

From Crissy Field, I drove to its end where the wooden stair-stepped entrance to Fort Point was located. I walked along the pavement, to the pier and back, up the steps to Fort Point and back. After a couple hours, I drove away to the vista point on the city side, which I had not visited since the early millennium when Tad took my cousin Dolly and I out on a tour of the city. (To this day, Tad is the best tour guide for San Francisco I’ve ever known and the city’s biggest stalwart ambassador and fan.)

And there he was.

As I peered down into the bay from the bridge, I noticed a group of surfers braving the current against increasingly harsher weather conditions. One aquaman clearly stood tall among the others snaking this way and that against the waves. In a zig-zagging motion, he rode it for 45 seconds from the time I noticed him doing his thing. His final ascent into glory was riding the top of the wave for a few glorious seconds before flying off his board, crashing into and under the water. It was absolutely exhilarating. I can only wonder what it was like to be him at that moment.

Ah to be him!

At that very moment, I had another thought even more powerful.

To be me!