I left my heart

Ah, yes... Clement Street at night. San Francisco at night. Gay men smiling at you. Lovely girls of all descriptions. Stories everywhere. All the little apartment buildings, inside each of which flows a lifetime of anguish and banality, of mornings and arguments and TV-watching on the couch, reading of newspapers over hushed discussions, and little affairs and dreams. Storefronts, inside of which play out the sad, unfulfilled dreams of wealth of each store-owner and their angry family, perhaps softened by the gradual accumulation of near-wealth or the facade of wealth, but embittered by the palpable gap between the aspired-for aristocratic privilege and daily reality of grubby commerce. And the customers, mostly completely unaware of the little family drama playing out before them on this nightly stage, this most commonplace of shows. Memories whisper everywhere. Ghosts from every time and place crowd in the air, their stories pressing on my eyes and my skin.

It's harder to be melancholy when you own a wonderful dog, who has every good quality. Loving, feisty, protective, full of character, tender as can ever be, beautiful and strong, now aging ever so gracefully – puppylike one moment, matronly the next, always fit and graceful and optimistic and adoring. Lady and I have a nightly ritual, about a half hour of intermittent running and walking along the greenbelts and the big park next to the elementary school, where she tugs and pulls and chases after local rabbits and cats, and sidles up to kids and nice people for some petting and cooing, and snarls and leaps after teenage boys and grumpy old people. My old memories of little Alex linger there, waiting to be revisited by an older Alex and her white-haired father, who will remember holding her hand and climbing on the play structures and swinging on the swings.