Nostalgia

I guess nostalgia is the mark of a someone with a history to reflect upon. I went to see the movie, Milk. Seeing my old neighborhood on the big screen prompted a lot of conversations and flashbacks to the 1970s in San Francisco. I notice this nostalgia turning up in other people's blogs. Jane shared her memories of 33 Linda Street, a building that I lived in when Harvey Milk was shot.

I arrived in SF October 1974 and moved into the flat at Dolores and 17th with four room mates. Lauren became my friend. She introduced me to the diaries of Anais Nin...took me to poetry readings. Then her best friend, Kerry, arrived in town after a winter in Ireland.

The next summer I met Toby and Sharon at Ruby O'Burke Pottery in Noe Valley. I introduced Toby to Lauren. When I went to live with James in Longbeach, Long Island during the winter of 1976-77, they moved into the top apartments in the Linda Street building.

James and I returned to SF the following spring and lived at Valencia and 17th for a few months until we broke up. He moved out and a few weeks later, the lower apartment #33 opened up. The lady who had lived there actually died and Toby wasted no time calling me with the landlord's phone number. When I moved out in June 1979 to head to New York, Jane moved in.

Each one of us read Jane's blog entry last week, inspiring a little cross communication about all that richness. I could keep going with all the connections. I met Mona that spring of 1977 that I returned to SF. She had moved to SF because her friend, Stanley, lived there. James and Stanley were best friends from SUNY Oswego, where I had also met them both. Mona moved to Brooklyn the year after I went to NYC....still lives in the same apartment there.

After SF and NYC, I lived in Boulder and Denver. Now I live in Buffalo.

Thanks to email, social networking and blogs, there remains a bit connection with far away friends. Living right here in the moment includes thoughts from other times and places that bleed through like layers of colored tissue paper molded together.