A
friend of mine in San Francisco set me up on a blind date, dinner at her home
with a few other people, and I met Susan Robinson. Susan was fascinating,
African American, a Cal grad, she was very successful in her career, and doing
well at Pacific Bell. Her mother was Roberta Robinson, a very well known
city councilmember in Los Angeles, and Susan was well connected
politically. She had worked for Willie Brown, knew Jerry Brown, Nancy
Pelosi and just about everyone in California politics, north and south.
A
couple of months later we had our first date in Los Angeles and then a
reciprocal date in the Bay Area. Susan considered herself a
libertine. She certainly tried to be, at least at first, but for whatever
reasons Susan and I couldn’t seem to find a rhythm between us. We
had a lot of other things in common and we both sincerely appreciated each
other.
I
had reservations. I don’t think my love for Susan was ever overwhelming
or profound, but the situation was good. She introduced me to a new world
that was interesting and exciting and we had a stable middle class
existence. Our physical relationship was like the overall relationship,
good sometimes and tolerable most of the time. Susan proved to be
unsatisfied with her own accomplishments and driven to work harder and
harder. She is a good person but sometimes she could be very difficult.
After seven years of marriage we were pretty estranged from each. We
found ways to keep it working. We made it another four years. After
eleven years together Suzette came into the picture and the excitement and
desire of pursuing Suzette pushed me into ending what had become a very
uncomfortable relationship with Susan.
But
in 1995 I moved up to Mill Valley to live with Susan. I had lived my
whole life in LA except for the four years in the Air Force. I used to
tell people I had lived all over, North Hollywood, Atwater, Glassell Park,
Highland Park and La Crescenta. I told them, one time, I had even lived
11 miles away from where I was born. Now I moved 400 miles north.
I loved LA but I wanted to see what life was like elsewhere.
I
moved in with Susan in Marin County just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San
Francisco. I continued to work for California Commerce Bank in Los
Angeles. The President of the bank kept me around as an insurance policy
against the problems the bank had had before I came. I supposedly worked
in San Jose but that office closed. After that I worked at home and went
to LA when I needed to. Two years after the first satisfactory
examination, I got us a second satisfactory CRA exam. I put real effort
into the job. It wasn't easy but it didn't require a lot of time.
Salvador, the President of the bank, was satisfied with that. I
worked half time and got paid full time.
I
enjoyed kayaking, cycling, hiking and just leading a life of leisure.
Susan went from the Phone Company to Odwalla, the juice company. After 6 months
she was fired. They didn’t really want to run a decent company, they just
wanted window dressing. A few months after she left Odwalla had an
outbreak of E. coli from their juice. One child died, many were sickened
and they were found guilty of criminal negligence. After Odwalla Susan
worked as a consultant and finally went to work for Citibank as their CRA
manager for California. After I left California Commerce, a subsidiary of
Banamex, Citibank bought Banamex and my successor at California Commerce Bank
worked for Susan.
At
first I felt very unrooted living in the Bay Area. Professionally no one
knew who I was and San Francisco is very different from LA. It seemed in
non-profits and economic development that people of color still naturally had
the advantage but in San Francisco the gay community added an extra twist and
being a straight white male was no advantage in non-profits. In Los
Angeles I had been well known and respected. In San Francisco I felt
discounted as a white middle aged male from the suburbs.
I
never became an ex-Angeleno, one of those people who denounces LA. I
described myself as an unrepentant Angeleno or an Angeleno in exile. I
did come to appreciate the Bay Area where it’s OK and even common to be
literate and where their universities are better known for academics than for
their football teams. In LA, unfortunately it's true, people seem much
more ready to discuss the movie than the book. The neighborhoods in San
Francisco and the East Bay are fabulous, unlike anything in LA. And
I’ve even become a foodie. For the first few years I had a foot in
both worlds, but when I quit banking and started working for the City of San
Francisco I had to admit I had become a Bay Area person.
We
lived in Mill Valley for awhile, in a beautiful home Susan owned on the
hillside above Boyle Park. Then we moved to Half Moon Bay where she
worked for Odwalla. Half Moon Bay was interesting for being so close to
San Francisco but so far away at the same time, isolated by roads that closed
in winter storms and otherwise frequently jammed with traffic. We got married
in April of 1996 when we lived in Half Moon Bay. After Odwalla let Susan
go we moved back to Mill Valley
In
1999 I quit California Commerce and stopped commuting. Staying in the Bay
Area helped me to begin to put down roots.
Once
when I was counseling at Consumer Credit Counselors I asked my usual question,
“Are you a native San Franciscan.”
The
woman answered, “No, but I’ve lived here so long, I think of myself as a
native.”
“How
long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Seven
years,” she said.
By
then I had been in the Bay Area for almost seven years myself and I didn’t feel
almost native at all, but it did make me think I should start accepting the Bay
Area as home. Seven years is a long time.
In
2001 I went to work for the City of San Francisco in their Juvenile Hall.
Juvenile Hall and Parks would never have happened for me if I hadn’t
moved up to the Bay Area. For that alone I always counted myself lucky to
have moved.
Between
Susan and me, the crisis in our marriage came when Susan lost her cleaning lady
and I did laundry for both of us. I drew the line at folding her clothes.
It was a small thing but it reminded me of the Paul Simon song, “she
liked to sleep with the window open. I liked to sleep with it
closed.” Susan wasn’t having it and we had to go to counseling.
Susan was a dominant personality and I am an independent person. Our
marriage survived when she got a job in LA and I stayed in Oakland. We
were good at a part time marriage. Our marriage became untenable when she
moved back to the Bay Area and we began living together again.
After
ten years or so it was hard to deny that I wasn’t at home in the Bay
Area. Now with 18 years in the Bay Area, I don't even try. I am a
Bay Area person.
I
love the beauty of it, I love the culture, I love the diversity, and I love the
Bay Area. I also love LA but I have to admit every time I go down there I
notice the traffic, the rushing everywhere, the prominence of the Hollywood
culture, and the incredible distances in Los Angeles. LA is like a city
in a centrifuge; flying away from its own center. And the air is bad.
When I visit LA I try to keep my complaints to myself, but sometimes they slip
out.
I
miss the mountains, the wilderness, the desert, LA’s Mexican heart, the
vitality of it all, LA’s lack of self consciousness and smugness and the way LA
is always changing. I miss the vibrant arts and the museums in LA.
I miss a town that has a nickname for itself. I miss mild winter days in
LA.
Paloma
and Suzette think the Bay Area is home. I have friends here and a working
of knowledge of the local history and geography. I am a Bay Area person
with strong LA ties.
