We happened on a haberdashery while walking home, just after stopping for hand-made chocolate truffles on Columbia Street.
It was an upscale hat shop in North Beach, and we stood amid a crowd of fashionistas, trying on high-quality head ware.
I looked good in the fedora, my daughter Laurel in the brown felt cloche with the light brown polkadot band.
I bought it for her for $70 — for Christmas. How could I not? She looked all 1920’s and 30’s in it — coy and gorgeous.
I could not have been more smitten.
It was that kind of day.
It began with a cafe latte, purchased by walking just down the street from our Genoa Place apartment to Cafe Trieste — and a bear claw found just around that corner at Stella’s.
Later my wife and daughters and I walked across the Golden Gate bridge, that huge orange-over-blue suspension of belief and rode the bus back to the waterfront.
For lunch I ate killer clam chowder and sour dough bread with my daughter Rosalind at the wharf. Later the family had ice creams. We walked home from there.
That night I had a slice of world class pizza taken from Tony’s, purchased two blocks for our apartment, a Firestone IPA from Trader Joes just down the hill, and some chocolate covered popcorn from a neighborhood shop.
I ate my dinner sitting in the bay window of our apartment, over looking Union Street, the city lights glowing in the big buildings, a crescent moon overhead, traffic down below.
What heals?
Love, pizza, bridges, chocolates, lattes, a wife, walking together, bread, daughters, hats and beauty — all collected within walking distance of where you sleep.
What heals me is San Francisco with the women I adore.
Thrive! 