San Francisco

To think.
To reflect.
To reinvent.
That’s why I moved to San Francisco.

Yesterday I took the Caltrain from Burlingame into San Francisco with my camera bag and a full day ahead of me. What started as a photo walk turned into a return to the city that changed my life.

More than twenty years ago, I was living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One cold, gloomy March day in Boston, I realized I needed a different environment entirely. Not just a new job role or apartment — a place that felt creatively alive.

So I moved west.

Yesterday reminded me exactly why.

The day started on Caltrain heading north into the city.

I wandered past the home of the San Francisco Giants, remembering one of my first games there with my dad years ago. I walked the Embarcadero and saw workers from Delancey Street Foundation — one of the city’s most remarkable organizations helping people rebuild their lives through work, community, and second chances.

Near the waterfront, I stopped by the pier where I once participated in the Red Bull Flugtag, launching my buddy Jay into the Bay dressed as Elvis Presley in a homemade flying machine that absolutely did not fly.

At the San Francisco Ferry Building, I grabbed coffee and watched the city move around me.

Then came the Ferry building plaza, the sea lions at Pier 39, and eventually North Beach.

North Beach always felt like possibility to me. Cafés full of writers and dreamers. Bookstores. Espresso. Late-night music leaking out of open doors. A neighborhood where people seemed less concerned with status and more interested in living interesting lives.

I remembered trying to find apartments there years ago and ultimating finding my home on Chestnut.

I walked by Bimbo’s 365 Club and thought about concerts and occasional Robin William's dry run comedy nights.

I remembered grabbing food at tiny neighborhood spots and spending afternoons working from cafés on Columbus Avenue.

Later, I made my way via Waymo to Crissy Field next to the Golden Gate Bridge, remembering beach days with Michele and Peyton — wind, sand, fog, dogs running everywhere.

Before heading home, I grabbed a latte at one my regular coffee shops, Caffe Greco, and read for a bit enjoying my latte and people watching in between pages.

Then wandered through North Beach and into Chinatown for a while, disappearing into another world for a few blocks like only San Francisco can offer.

The city has changed a lot since I first arrived here in the early 2000s, but underneath it all, San Francisco still feels like a place with the freedom to think, to reflect, and to reinvent.