CHOOSING CONNECTION OVER COMFORT (book chapter preview)

I will admit my writing came to a grinding halt when the kids started their summer break, but opening my inbox again yesterday and reading your thoughtful replies to my last email (I will get back to you soon ;)) was a huge motivator to reignite my writing habit

So here’s a third sneak preview for you, about the unexpected things that happened to me when I left the comfort of my familiar bubble in San Francisco…

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The Fog

In San Francisco, the fog rolls in thick. The city disappears, leaving stories untold and voices unheard. And then, just as quietly as it came, the fog lifts. The outlines return. The air is now crisp, the view clearer than before.

2016. The year I learn never to choose comfort over connection.

The first thing I see when I come out of the subway station to start my new life in San Francisco, is a group of men. Or rather, they are the first thing I smell. Homelessness has a smell that’s hard to describe, and even harder to forget. It’s like a thick, sour fog, the smell of a cascade of things gone wrong. A marriage failed, a job lost, an illness, mental or physical. No savings, a lingering proneness to addiction, no support system.

And then, the streets.

And then, the smell.

And then, the stigma.

“Just try to ignore them”, our relocation officer recommends us while she shows us cute apartments in the Mission district. “Don’t let them get to you”.

“It’s best not to engage”, my husband’s new colleague advises when we leave a trendy fusion restaurant, and someone asks us for our bagged leftovers. “Helping them makes them lazy. They need to feel their pain so that they are motivated to make a change for themselves.”

“I’m so glad they removed the tent encampments from our streets,” the baker sighs while selling me a 7$ croissant. “It was so upsetting to have to step over sleeping people to enter the bakery.”

San Francisco and its surroundings are said to have the greatest concentration of millionaires in the US. It also has the highest percentage of homelessness per capita.

I see myself at a crossroad. I thought I came here to find a job in tech, in line with my career so far. My ego would like me to be as least as successful as my husband in Silicon Valley, the Mecca of Nerds. But my heart hurts when I see the impact the tech industry has on San Francisco.

I slowly see an invisible bubble forming around me and my husband. In this bubble, San Francisco is full of endless opportunity, tech optimism, the best possible yoga classes, mouth watering food,  colorful dance parties at 7AM, of casually hanging out with the greatest visionaries of our time on a Tuesday night. It’s a place where everyone can be who they want to be, think what they want to think, wear who they want to wear, love who they want to love. It’s a comfortable bubble, but I realize it conceals a big ugly truth.

So I grab a needle and burst the bubble.

On a Tuesday morning, I take the Muni Underground to the Tenderloin district. I’m wearing the most low-profile outfit I could find (which still screams ‘yoga fitgirl’), and only bring my phone, ID and some cash. When I leave the Muni station at Civic Center, I take a deep breath, and immediately regret it as the smell of garbage and old urine fills my nose.

Google calls the Tenderloin district unsafe and crime-ridden. Yelp warns: avoid at all costs. Locals light up when asked to share a juicy Tenderloin horror story, passed along like urban legends, never from firsthand experience.

My brain tells me to flee back to my good old bubble. But my legs just keep walking deeper into the neighborhood. A late-night Google rabbit hole led me to sign up as a volunteer at the Curry Senior Center, where I’ll be serving lunch to underprivileged seniors today.

My heart drops as I am approaching Turk street. A tall man whistles and describes my butt in great detail. Another guy offers me drugs, or so I assume as I don’t understand his slang. I try to make myself invisible. I am very much not invisible.

After a painfully long five minute walk, I find the entrance of the senior center. A guard lets me in. “You the new girl?” he asks, and I nod. “Follow me.” The building is old but clean. Peter, the greeter, waves at me while I’m still climbing the stairs. “Hellloooo you, are you ready to have some fun?” I imagine that Peter looks like what Super Mario would look like after retirement. Blue eyes and a mustache above a cheerful smile, a wrinkly face framed by a red cap. In his eyes, the reflection of many battles with his version of angry mushrooms, bowsers, and piranha plants.

Peter gently grabs my shoulder and guides me to the kitchen, handing me a hairnet and gloves to complement my modest outfit. In the kitchen I’m met by a colorful bunch of humans. No frills, they give me a spoon and tell me to put broccoli on the plate. I can tell they’ve already filed me under “well-meaning, short-term”. I can see where they are coming from, but I will stay for three years.

That first day, I hardly leave the kitchen. But in the following weeks I start joining the seniors for lunch. I meet Brandon, who recommends me a restaurant that I could never afford, where he used to bring his realtor clients before his business went bust in 2008 and he ended up on the streets. He tells me about the first time he was allowed to vote as a black man. And about how he quit protesting, because he realized that people with his skin color would never have the same privileges as people with mine.

I meet Cyrus, who goes to the public library every day to work on his website, on which he fact checks every single debate of Trump and Hillary, who are running for president at the time.

I meet Christopher, who struggles with episodes of mental illness, and loves talking about meditation and his lucid dreams. He is the only one that frequently asks how I am doing.

There’s Daniel, the designer and musician and his inseparable friend Jupiter, a bearded dragon.

Bonnie, who proudly shows me a picture of that time she served lunch for the Clintons.

Michael, who just underwent brain surgery and is now back in the homeless shelter.

The conversations I have with them are often uncomfortable, messy, and heartbreaking. I’m confronted with lives derailed, failing support systems, my own immense privilege. And I’m inspired by the wisdom and the potential I find in every person I share a meal with.

My visits to the Tenderloin become more frequent, and I start seeing the neighborhood through different eyes. Now that I dare to lift my gaze, I am cheerfully greeted by the drug dealers. And whenever I bring my baby daughter, they holler at each other to put the drugs away and make space for her and me. I notice how many young families live there, and how they all know and support each other. I don’t even know all the neighbors that live in my fancy Castro apartment, transient as tech expats are. I still see the mess, the despair, the crime in the Tenderloin district - but it also becomes the neighborhood where I experience the deepest sense of community.

My friends in the tech bubble ask me about my encounters, using my stories to connect to the homeless people they see on the streets, but are afraid to approach themselves. I start writing about my experiences on Medium. A woman called Diya reaches out to me. Together with a team of volunteers, she is collecting 100 stories of people who have experienced homelessness to rehumanize the issue, and she is asking if I want to write for them. Without hesitation, I join the Stories Behind The Fog team.

Our stories are featured in newspapers, on t.v. shows, in podcasts, on different stages and in a TED talk. We organize gatherings where we bring together so-called ‘native San Franciscans’ and people from the tech community, to talk about how the techies could support the pulse of the city, rather than gentrify it.

It’s far from a smooth ride. My husband ends up on a poster stating ‘you techies are destroying our city.’ I get into an ugly argument about money with a woman I’ve interviewed for Stories Behind The Fog. It’s not easy, but I am proud of the small ripples we are creating, the tiny strands of connection we are fostering.

I thought I had come to San Francisco to learn about tech. But San Francisco taught me something else: that proximity, however uncomfortable, shatters assumptions. That sharing a meal can change everything. And that even though I have an MSc degree in engineering, I’m not destined to thrive in the tech industry. I’m meant to do raw, deeply human work, starting in a dodgy little neighborhood that quickly became the place where I feel most welcome in the whole city.

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That was sneak preview #3

Just like last time, I am so curious to hear from you! Have you written a book, and do you have tips for how to keep going? How did this story resonate with you? How do you know that you are in attunement, or not? I’d love to hear from you.

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