Monday, May 29, 2017

Farewell, Oakland



When I first moved to Oakland back in June 2011, I was still navigating through a perilous juncture in my life. I was a newborn cancer survivor. I had just finished a first (and super-duper-crappy) draft of my memoir and still dealing with everything that had happened to me. David, a sweet, beautiful man I had befriended while undergoing radiation treatment had just died a few weeks before. And so, I was still acutely aware of how temporary life is. I was still wounded, still brittle, but I was beginning to heal thanks to my writing and a six-week artist residency that winter in Taos, New Mexico. Getting away from San Francisco—the city where a few of my blood cells jumped the rails and went rogue—was nourishing for me. All that solitude was especially good for my spirit; living completely on my own for the first time in my life was freeing for me.

So when I settled back to my typical everyday life in San Pancho, I knew, in my heart, I couldn’t continue to live with roommates; not after I had basked in a more quiet, inward life on my own. At that point in my life—a life that felt incredibly uncertain—my overriding, urgent and borderline desperate need was to establish a rhythm, a way of living that would allow me to be as content and happy as possible. I earnestly felt like my well-being depended on it. (I still do.) Nothing frightened me more than the prospect of relapsing.

And so, I decided to leave the home I had shared with my three roommates. I decided to leave the Mission District, the vibrant, ever-transforming neighborhood where I had lived for nearly seven years. At the time, I worked about thirty hours every week to allow more time to devote to writing, which was a constant tonic. Since I wasn’t raking in piles of money, I couldn’t afford a single-bedroom apartment in the city so I migrated to Oakland, back to the sunny eastside of the bay where I had been raised.

I still remember my first few weeks living right by the eastern side of Lake Merritt. Summer had begun, and I remember how instantaneously at home I felt in my new surroundings just by simply wearing a t-shirt and shorts just about everywhere (except San Francisco when I migrated back for work). I remember how great it felt to come home and kick off my socks and leave them laying in the living room if I wanted. Moving to Oakland was also coupled with a newfound kindling love since I had begun to date my sweetheart, Maria; I remember how at home I felt when we first strolled around the lake on a sun-filled afternoon. Throughout that summer, I remember how proud and at peace I felt when I would stare with quiet awe at Oakland’s minute skyline as I cycled around the lake. I never grew tired of that vista whether if I was immersed within a sea of sunlight or twilight. And when I breathed in that modest but delightful view, I felt like I was exactly where I should be—and I have found that such moments in life are often much too fleeting.

Before long, a year passed. A third Cancerversary was celebrated. With time, I healed. Then Maria and I moved in together, synthesizing our earthly belongings into one home that was truly ours. The years continued to pass. We got married twice in Oakland—legally at the county’s Clerk-Recorder’s office and ritually entwined in front of our loved ones in a forest of redwoods. And then my book was published. That year—probably the sweetest of my life—my heart felt full. My spirit felt at peace (but fleetingly, of course). Then, Maria became pregnant, but she lost the embryo. And then she became pregnant again and lost the second one. Together we weathered that sorrow. Our third one held, and she eventually gave birth to our hijito. All of this happened in Oakland. And then, a few weeks ago, we lifted our roots and moved south to the foothills of Hayward to be closer to our families.

Although I still work in Oakland, it still tore me up at first to not wake within this city that I have loved like no other. In a short, short amount of time, Oakland had become my town. My beat. My haven. My home. I doubt I will ever find another hometown that I identify with so strongly. In its totality, its 78,000 square miles of land, sky and water, Oakland is a diverse, pulsing medley of beauty and fucked-up-ness that I always felt like an extension of.

It would be easy to tick off the places in Oakland I miss and remain fond of, but I’ll refrain. Oaktown is far more than just a list of places I happen to like. The future may not exist, but now that our trinity is here in our new home in Hayward it’s hard not to daydream of Maria and I returning to Oakland to show Miguelito our old haunts (The Grand Lake Theatre! The Rose Garden! Dracena Park! Joaquin Miller Park!), the town where he was forged, and to discover some new places together.

with Maria, eight months pregnant, at Lake Temescal

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