So, I spent this weekend in San Francisco, and I thought I might have something to write about it if I sat down and tried. I know very little about San Francisco, but we were going for an my Aesthetics class to go to some churches and art museums.
Friday, I visited Mission Delores and the Basilica. All the churches we visited were undeniably grand and the art was awe-inspiring, no doubt. But...honestly, I couldn't help being a bit pessimistic seeing that so much of the church's money was spent on these buildings rather than the fairly large population of homeless just blocks away. It was a bit sickening to me. We went to afternoon mass at St. Marys and the Legion of Honor (an art museum). This is the first time I loved an art museum...being able to recognized artists, paintings, the style, and what was going on in politics, history, philosophy, and the church at the time was really wonderful.
That night after walking around the city, taking much too long of a nap with a couple friends, eating dinner at a diner at a time much to late for dinner, a few of us were sitting in Union Square, "shooting the shit" as one might say, when Steve walks up. "It's my birthday and I'm the joke man," he says to us. He offers to tell us jokes, and we tell him we'd like to hear them. He warns us his jokes are racist and dirty because clean jokes are too difficult for him to think of, but he tries to clean them up a bit for us. After laughing with him for quite some time, we expect what is about to come. "Okay, I'm gonna beg now. Do you have anything for me?" We told him we couldn't give him anything, but we continued to walk with him and spent another hour or two with him, and shared a meal with him. We shared jokes with one another. It was getting late, and we all needed to get to bed, so a friend asked him if we could pray over him before we parted ways. Steve told us about the power of prayer and how it had protected him. After two of us prayed, Steve told the other couple of us that we needed to pray for him too. He wanted more.
If you didn't know, San Francisco has taken all the poor and homeless of the city and confined them to a few city blocks, the Tenderloin. Steve told us, "it is bad down there. evil, really. stay up top, don't go down there." The city says they have controlled the problem of homelessness, but really they have just put what we usually see as the grunge of society into a pit where the rest of society can live unaware of their presence if they choose.
We left Steve after he thanked us, told us a few more jokes (he really was hilarious...even in his drunker stupor), and thanked us some more. "You know, when I came up to you guys, I was just hoping to get something from you guys, but you know I really like you guys," he said, and we told him we liked him too and thanked him for joking around with us.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday, I visited Grace cathedral, the SFMoMA, worked with some socially-awkward yet incredibly sweet nuns at a soup kitchen, and had a fun time on the cable cars and trying to make all the street musicians happy by dancing and enjoying the music they were making. Oh...my teacher, Tom, made sure to take all of us students down a street where a man has taken up residence who used to be an opera singer. Well, he still is an opera singer, but he used to get paid for it. We gathered around him (like 40 of us), he put a CD in the player, and he walked back in the alley where the sound of his voice would be filled, told us that we were free to do interpretive dance, and then gave a beautiful performance filled with the joy of still doing what he loves yet the sorrow of not being on the stage any longer. Anyone could tell his voice had become a little worn out in the years without practice, and his body a little larger without proper nutrition, but his love for what he does well was more important than that, and we all left thankful for him and for the beauty of a passionate man.
--------------------------------------------
Today, I woke up early and walked around the city before any commotion began, then found a nice coffee shop to do some homework in before everyone else got up for breakfast (I felt like quite the hipster reading Nietzsche in an organic coffee shop in san fran...oh well). Then we ended our trip at the de Young museum. I ended up being by myself the entire time I was there...which was actually nice. I could go at my own pace, lingering in the tribal art sections and just glancing briefly at all those darn John Singleton Copley's. I spent most of my time in an Alaskan tribal art section and the African art. I was just in awe of how old the art was...1200 B.C is so long ago. And it is so beautiful to me that they made their own necessary, daily tools (like knives, storage containers, combs...everything) but also that they made them beautiful and unique. I know what it feels like to make my own cup or plate with my own hands, putting a part of me into it and then using it. It's a good feeling, and a beautiful art form.
Now I am back in the trees and the mountains and feeling at home here.
No comments:
Post a Comment