There was a time, not too long ago yet somehow in another lifetime, when I lived just blocks away from the Bay Bridge—when mornings smelled like fog and seaweed, and the evenings hummed with the quiet lull of the city winding down.

San Francisco, before the pandemic, had a particular rhythm. It wasn’t always gentle, but it was mine. The chaos of Market Street. The stillness of the Embarcadero at sunrise. The way the fog rolled in like a curtain call over the bay. There was something grounding about it—something that felt infinite, even when everything else was uncertain.

Some weekends, I’d take long solitary walks in the Japanese Tea Garden. It was my ritual of quiet—of watching the ripples through still water, of pausing by the stone lanterns, of letting time slow down beneath the twisted limbs of ancient bonsai. There was no rush, no noise. Just the soft crunch of gravel, the subtle scent of jasmine, and my breath finally matching the stillness.

That version of life feels far away now fading away like a fading happy dream.

Post-pandemic routines are different. A lot has changed. I have changed. But there are days when my body remembers what my calendar has forgotten—that once, I walked through serenity on a Saturday morning, without urgency, without fear and in an unknown world feeling like I belonged.

I miss that.

Not just the place, but the person I was in it.

Some part of me is still there—sitting on a bench, hot chocolate in hand, letting the world pass gently by.

Till later!