Accrochée à la colline*


1. It’s been ten years since the first time I went to the little city of hills by the bay.
My grandmother had warned me about the place. She’d never been there; in fact she’d never left Europe, but she read the newspapers a lot, and she knew of the possible and highly probable dangers to a young girl:
a. earthquakes
b. guns
c. prostitution.
How could I argue? I too knew about the schizophrenic tectonic plates; but bridges that collapse onto peak hour traffic only happen to other people. I promised to stay away from gun-totting pimps and packed my bags for three months.
The earth didn’t tremble that much and I didn’t have to swap sexual favours for meals.
I can’t say I made the most of my time there; I didn’t explore the city as well as I should. I’m always thinking that I never explore things and places as well as I could. Mostly because I’m scared, and lazy. Still, I made a real, an important friend there, and I knew I’d be back. And I was. Every time I breathed in the air and thought – it feels so right here, could I live here? It wasn’t a real question, it wasn’t a plan. It was just a romantic notion of finding the right place for me, the place where I would fit.

2. Years later, I met A and travelled back and forth for a while. I was starting to feel I had two poles in my life; almost two homes. And she gave me the keys to her appartment.

I have asked myself –what if she didn’t live there?
It just happened that the appeal of a London-San Francisco plane ticket multiplied.
I loved the city already, and after I met her I loved it more, because it was hers. I wish I could hit myself over the head with the notion that I only loved her because that was where she lived.
But even I am not that opportunistic. It was a simple sum of love+love.

3. So now it’s like I’ve been banned. Exiled, almost. I have friends over there, but the city’s changed. The places I know and love are hers, were ours for some time.

4. I miss the city that was ours, because I miss her. And I miss the city that was mine before I knew her. And I miss my friends.

5. It’s a painful fall. Should I get back onto the horse as soon as possible?

6. There is in me the temptation to go back and haunt those places. Make myself hurt. Prod the bruises to see just how much they can hurt. Dwell on it, milk the pain with more acuity than I do 6000 miles away. I don’t know if that’d be the right thing to do. Empty the abscess?

7. Perhaps when I next have the chance, I won’t feel the need so much.

8. The last time we talked she said :‘you used to come here before you knew me. You can still come.’ I felt like she was giving me permission, being patronising. I know it’s probably unfair of me.

9. I hate it when doors are closing in my face.

*this is a line from a 70s French song about San Francisco. It’s a cliché and I love it.