Berkeley and San Francisco, Outer Sunset.
Today, and for the next few days, I’ll be in Berkeley, staying with Kaye after our trip together. I went to San Rafael and met Cynthia for lunch, and Kaye and I will be heading to Cynthia and James’ home tomorrow, in Forest Knolls in Marin county, and spending the night, but we wanted to grab some time today as well.
Like this whole area, San Rafael is a nice town with great surrounding views. Even though the area is heavily populated, with lots of traffic (I’d have a hard time living out here for that reason alone), it is beautiful, with lots of great views and architecture. Unfortunately, when driving on my own around here, there’s nowhere to pull over and take shots of the some of the lovely scenery and buildings in the area.
I headed back to Kaye’s and by then it was getting quite later into the afternoon. We headed over to meet Kaye’s very close friend, Allison, who I’ve previously met a few times, as well as other friends, and we spent some time at Allison and her husband Brian’s great 6th floor apartment in the “dog patch” district of San Francisco. It was good to see Allison again, and I enjoyed meeting Brian, who is a professional artist, and teaches art locally, and does wonderful comic book art.
We went to the roof garden of Allison and Brian’s apartment building, which is lovely, with more-or-less 360 degree views of the city, and sat for while in the great late afternoon weather, and talked. Allison’s father recently died, shortly after Bev, and we talked about grief and our experiences. I said that I realize that no matter how much I talk or write or think about Bev, in some way my grief is inexpressible, in that I can’t fully describe or discharge it, and so in that sense it’s inexpressible. It’s always good to talk about it, though, and I really don’t want to ever discharge the grief and the feelings of loss. I want to always feel the loss of Bev.
Brian and Allison accompanied Kaye and me as we visited 1375 25th street in the Sunset district, where Marg and Bev lived, with some assorted roommates, including Sheila Kelly, the 50-foot woman, from 1979-1981. Bev and I have visited here a couple of times during previous visits, and today I released some of Bev’s ashes here, into the bushes in front of the house. This was an important place for Bev, near the corner of 25th and Judah.
We headed to the intersection of Lawton and the Great Highway, by Ocean Beach. Driving to the beach, you can see why this area of San Francisco is called the Sunset District.
The intersection of Lawton and the Great Highway, which is where Bev’s truly beloved dog, Takoma, died in 1979. He was so excited to be at the beach, he ran into a car that was passing. From that time and for eternity, the Great Pacific Highway was renamed and now known to all as the Great Takoma Highway.
Of course, Bev was distraught about the loss, and wrote about it at the time. Bev loved Takoma, who was a great companion and friend to Bev, and loved her right back. He was an idiosyncratic kind of guy, but really special.
I spread ashes at the intersection of Lawton and the Great Takoma Highway and again on the sands of the beach, for both Bev and Takoma. Another important place for Bev.
The sunset at the beach was lovely, and we timed it just right.
