{"id":385,"date":"2011-04-01T20:14:50","date_gmt":"2011-04-02T00:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Sarcastic-Travels.com\/?p=385"},"modified":"2011-04-01T20:14:50","modified_gmt":"2011-04-02T00:14:50","slug":"the-accidental-tourist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sarcastic-travels.com\/the-accidental-tourist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Accidental Tourist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
While the impetus for this batch of musings occurred in San Francisco in February, it only tangentially relates to the City itself. Instead this “travel” narrative has mostly to do with home, the life lived there, which is of course left behind while traveling, and most importantly, it is about the wonderful man that I will refer to as the Accidental Tourist.
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To be fair, and I would have to believe that at least some of you know this anyway, the name Accidental Tourist, while perfect for my purposes isn’t my invention, being instead the title of a 1985 novel by Anne Tyler which was later made into a movie. The novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, I have read it, as I have all of Anne Tyler’s works, but really once you read one your will have a grip on most all of them which almost invariably focus on failed marriages and troubled families, which sounds singularly uninteresting, if not depressing, but truly, in Tyler’s hands the subject becomes captivating. However, this version isn’t about any failures, in fact it is rather about the opposite, the success of family as we define it, the tenacity of relationships faced with crisis, and ultimately, I suppose as sappy as it sounds, the overarching power of love.<\/p>\n
Every year, typically in late winter, Tim and I make what I call a pilgrimage to San Francisco to feast on wonderful foods, to re-witness the most consistently joyous hour of my life (Steve Silver’s Beach Blanket Babylon), and to allow me to indulge in nostalgia for a life long ago lost but never regretted, meaning the years in which I called San Francisco home. How nostalgic am I for what will always be home to me, the state of California, notwithstanding its manifest faults, geological and otherwise? Put it this way: Whenever I fly into Los Angeles, but especially if I fly into San Francisco, I can name every major road and city that we overfly from the Nevada border until we land and I have to fight the urge to cry for a home I can’t seem to find my way back to. When I fly away again, as I inevitably must do, I feel a blackness on my soul that usually lasts for several days once I am “home” again. It almost seems that one would have to ask why I end up on that plane headed east when it seems that I really want to just stay west!<\/p>\n
And in fact, that question was more or less posed to me during dinner with my oldest and dearest of friends one night in San Francisco. The observation was made that of all the places that my friend could imagine me living at the age of 41, San Francisco would have been the number one choice while Georgia wouldn’t have even made the list. And had you asked me prior to 2004, I honestly would have told you the same exact thing! So what changed? The Accidental Tourist was created and that made all the difference.<\/p>\n
My response was along the lines of something hackneyed resembling “home is where the heart is,” which while a true statement, didn’t really begin to cover the whole of it. If I take a simple look at comparative values and opportunities, I am immediately confronted by the reality the for what the monthly mortgage costs in Georgia in San Francisco I MIGHT be able to afford a studio apartment in a neighborhood where I usually wouldn’t find someone else’s urine on the steps in the morning. A garage to park a vehicle would easily double monthly costs, so any automobile would be subject to hideous and unavailable parking and the attendant risks of leaving a car parked on city streets (no need to wash the windows since they will be routinely busted out and you just replace them instead). And let’s not forget that I would once again be beholden to Laundromats in one form or another along with the omnipresence of other people above, below, and to both sides in all likelihood. And if that doesn’t sound so bad, let’s take a quick look at my current surroundings for purposes of comparison.<\/p>\n
My current abode had more than adequate parking, as it should since it sits on an acre lot. It would be pretty depressingly difficult to feed as many birds and other wildlife from an apartment window. And oh yeah, I have my own washer and dryer! Far from a studio of maybe 200 square feet, I have 2,500 square feet to stretch out in here, and that matters because I take up a lot of room! And in case you wonder what I mean by that, let’s just go upstairs and take a look. There is a bedroom euphemistically called the “guest room” although it has served that purpose all of three times total since we moved in here in 2006. Realistically, the room serves as a staging area for gifts in the process of being wrapped and stored for shipping or other means of giving. The closet is the repository of wrapping supplies, which for me is a major collection of gear, as well as protecting our collection of formal wear for the cruises we sometimes take, although never more than one in any year. Put it this way, it is a cold room, not getting much traffic. But if I had to move to a studio, what would I do with all that wired ribbon?<\/p>\n