TERROR. DISTRESS. EXUBERANCE. STRENGTH. HOPE. HOW TO DEAL WITH THE RELENTLESS EMOTIONAL TURMOIL OF THESE DAYS
Scene at edge of Lafayette Park (Author photo)
Anxiety? Through the roof.
For anyone who’s been paying attention, recent days and weeks have been more discouraging, and borderline frightening, than the days and weeks preceding. Those of us who hoisted protest signs got a little temporary relief.
I was out with my KAKISTOCRACY sign (It’s in the dictionary: Government by the worst. The least efficient. The most corrupt.) But I feel almost as strongly about the message on its flip side:
With my second-favorite marching-sign message (Author photo)
Because sometimes kindness seems the only response to the firehose of brutally bad news: political violence, discouraging court decisions, indiscriminate ICE raids, the cruelty and inhumanity a majority of the country wants to see end. The pressure is already beginning to build again. That may be a good thing for the country, since it seems nothing but public outcry will save our democracy. But what about us cogs in the juddering wheel of justice? We, the little people who need to gather strength?
Many recover with the help of music and art, visits with friends, immersion in a good book. I use all of the above. But I find solace, plus instantaneous comfort and joy, in the urban landscape. Mother Nature busies herself in the midst of the busiest built environments, the American city.
Most U.S. cities, with the help of local conservation groups or non-profits like the excellent Trust for Public Land, have pockets of open space where Mother Nature does her tranquilizing thing. In San Francisco, our cup of wonder overflows, including hilltops for viewing the world:
View of the Bay on a foggy day, seen from a hilltop porch garden. (Author photo)
Whether it’s outdoor walks in the country, where green fields or sparkling lakes serve as gateways to the calmer soul, small-town gardens or city parks, Mother Nature has a way of saying, “Breathe. Look around. Look up.”
I don’t know his name. I’m not even sure of his instrument — although I think it’s a shakuhachi.
What I do know is when I’m walking through Peace Plaza in San Francisco’s Japantown, the notes float wistfully above street noises and conversations of passersby. Bringing peace indeed.
In those melodies is a cure for all weariness, anxiety or woe.
Sometimes instead of the flautist there is, across the street, an instrumentalist. He’s tried to tell me the name of his instrument. It’s not quite as peaceful as the flute, but close.
It’s easy to pass them by, these gentle buskers whose music is a universal language. Most people do.
But I keep a supply of dollar bills in my pocket for whenever one is there. Because if you stop, and listen for the sweetness?
The atmospheric river just washed over California. San Francisco was spared the worst, but a few torrential interludes kept us aware.
Good news? Fire season is officially over. Bad news? Flooding, downed limbs and trees, plenty of disruptions. Standing in the spot above I had just walked past the scene below.
The skies were still gray, a slight drizzle reminding everyone of the downpours just past.
But it was hard to stand on the quiet sidewalk and not admire the palette Mother Nature had dipped into to create a scene Camille Pissarro might have wanted to paint.
Occasionally, when not looking at interesting architecture on city walks — college classes taught me to look above ground level — or admiring the clouds, I like to look down in search of urban art underfoot. To take time, sometimes, studying what the sun is doing. The sun is often busy making art. Renaissance. Abstract. Art Deco. With the help of street trees, leafy designs splash across sidewalks and stretch upward to green shrubbery. The result is an invitation to slow down, wonder and appreciate.
The opening invitation might come in the form of a mixed-media design, such as this assemblage of line, texture, color and imagery — despite the green being only overhead and out of the frame. Random chalk-mark additions are not infrequent. Including advice messages:
When meditating on urban art, one has to practice dismissal of interruptions along the way.
But back to the sunlight and shadow. The light plays on sidewalk shrubbery, creating green-leaf foreground for an artwork of patterned shadow background. In hindsight, the work could have done without the intrusion of that cellphone image at the bottom edge, but we try not to overthink things.
Even when confronted with the challenge of downtown business districts the sun often finds a way. These are the times when walking meditation goes in different directions: skyscraper dreams. Are any of my fellow humans noticing the sidewalk shadow-painting at their feet? Can the introduction of steel and concrete have something artistic to say for itself? Urban architects hope so.
Welcome to Urban Art Appreciation 101. We’re all in this together.
Thirsty? Have you ever been several miles into a summer hike only to find your water bottle has leaked and there’s not a drop remaining?
Some of us get that way in between rainy days.
Rainy days – and rainy nights – are, for me, like having a frosty new bottle of water appear along the the dusty trail as if by magic. Not to get all biblical or anything, but it’s hard not to think of the Isaiah lines about rains coming down from the heavens so we can go out in joy and come back in peace. . . I particularly like the words that follow, about bursting into song and clapping hands.
OK, rain is not always an unmitigated blessing. Floods, mudslides, downed trees, sinkholes, erosion . . . and now we have to worry about atmospheric rivers.Atmospheric rivers?? Think ribbons of water vapor about the size of the mouth of the Mississippi River (NOAA gave me that image) that float around in the skies en route to swashing across the countryside. California’s old happenstance, new reality.
But what I love is just regular rain. For city dwellers, and committed city walkers like yours truly, it’s an invitation to come out.
There are, for instance, photo ops everywhere, especially the reflection kind. Somehow the allure of cozy wine bars and coffee shops grows exponentially with every raindrop, which tempts us passers-by to stop and admire the festivity within and the lights bouncing back at us.
I also love the Umbrella Dance thing. With every other walker coming your way under another umbrella, there is a reflexive silent negotiation in passing. You go high, I go low? You tilt Left, I tilt right? Smiling helps. It may be just my hometown bias, but somehow I feel umbrella dancers are gentler in San Francisco than some other locales. New Yorkers, for instance (and I’ve been in Manhattan rains from Hurricane Ida on down) can be, well, insistent: I’m going low, and don’t you dare bother me.
Such negotiations meanwhile, as well as the overall art of wet walks, also encourage looking down. All in all it is an abundance of riches: dancing leaves on street trees above, shimmering glass-fronts around, sidewalk scenery below. This walker is a confirmed sidewalk freak.
If the rains hang around for a while, wet leaves on sidewalks stain themselves into urban art. Sometimes with the help of newly-dropped friends that haven’t yet been around long enough to fade.
On the sheltered side of the street — we’re talking (walking) residential blocks here; you can’t find this downtown — if the rains hang around long enough they turn sidewalk blocks into something moldy. I can’t believe I’m saying anything nice about mold — given the allergies of friends and family and too many people in sub-standard housing. But greenery patterns on sheltered sidewalks can also be lovely.
These (above) reminded me of the Impressionists. They were on a fairly steep hillside. It is wise to step cautiously around the green if you don’t want to interrupt your walking career with a broken hip.
But still, what wonders Mother Nature has for us.
Rainy day love may have something to do, in my case, with the long and not forgotten California drought. In California (and probably elsewhere) we talk about ‘water years’ – October 1 of the preceding year to September 30 of the one you’re thinking of. Official droughts have to do with measurements of rainfall in ‘water years’ and according to those measurements our last severe drought years were 2012-2016. But when your wetness has been coming from atmospheric rivers with long periods of dryness in between, drought can feel endless. I do not complain about San Francisco’s year-round walkable weather, but can we spell Climate Change?
Last ‘water year’ — 2022–23 — was one of the wettest on record for the Golden State, but we’re still heavy into conservation. (Pour the rest of your glass on the plants! Re-use towels, reduce laundry! I’ll skip the rhymes about flushing that are unsuitable for a family publication.) Drought years don’t fade easily from memory.
So here’s to rainy days everywhere. Rainy walks. Cozy coffee shops where everyone feels connected by the shelter. Umbrella dancing. Sidewalk art.
And not least, when the view from your window looks anything like the above, a clear message from God:
