017: SF and its Small Spaces
Some thoughts on community
Hello! Some personal news—I signed a job offer! As I wind down my sabbatical, I’ve been 1/ reflecting on how much I’ve changed and grown, 2/ feeling the impending dilemma of time management again, and 3/ struggling with writing consistently again. This week’s piece is about a value I’m growing—and yes, I currently work part time at a cake shop. Come visit me while you still can!
Written after helping teach a poke class at Founders Inc., a community I’ve been spending more time with recently.
Lately, I’ve noticed a change in my personality. Perhaps this change had been gradual, but had now progressed far enough for me to see a departure from who I used to be. A younger Wendy romanticized non-stop travel as the epitome of the luxe life, following travel bloggers and planning dream vacations to different destinations whenever I had the money. Not that I have the money now to jet-set (far from it, lol), but I’m now no longer drawn to a life of tourism. I’m now more interested in learning what it means to grow roots in a city.
A part of me always spurned calling San Francisco my home. Having grown up in Palo Alto, I joked about my life feeling like HBO’s Silicon Valley, rolling my eyes at how many aspects fit the many SF stereotypes. It’s as though if I rejected the city through enough self-deprecating jokes, I could still separate my identity from the collective culture of my surroundings.
Yet in the Great Pandemic Migration, I weirdly enough had no desire to follow the trend and restart my life in New York. Again, during my sabbatical, when I no longer had a job to tether me to one place, I also had no desire to become a nomad and live in a different country every week.
“Is it because traveling or moving like that is too impulsive? Too unplanned?” someone asked me at one point.
I had to think a lot about that question, and I think I finally have an answer that rings true when I repeat it. There’s nothing wrong with traveling, but deep down, I knew it would not give me what I needed. While I tell myself that I love to travel because I love seeing more of the world and experiencing foreign cultures, I also use it to run away from feelings of discomfort and stagnancy. The novelty of being in a different country is enough to shake up my life, especially with the blessing of impermanence—where I’m just Wendy here to have fun and nothing else.
It’s comfortable being a tourist—someone who can just consume, observe, borrow with no expectation of return. Every interaction belongs to the moment, with no consequence or significance from them—it’s consumerism at its most convenient. Admittedly, I was also a tourist at home in San Francisco—despite getting to know the city’s best food spots, I had taken no ownership of trying to build its culture or better its future.
I think about my role (er, lack thereof) in the community more often these days, especially as I reflect on local scenes I’ve witnessed and enjoyed in recent weeks.
I think of the lady who owns A K Meats in the Richmond. I didn’t catch her name, but I watch her converse happily in both fluent English and Spanish with locals who visit her shop. She checks in on us as we eat on the sidewalk, asking us if we have enough hot peppers with our hot sandwiches, remembering to take care of us even though her shop is so busy. A passerby walks past us and yells, “Best pastrami in San Francisco!”
I think of The Berkeley Kitchens, the commercial space home to locally beloved (and top rated) eateries. Where locals gathering for lunch at Standard Fare on a Wednesday make the scene as buzzy as a Sunday Brunch. Where Alain, the owner of La Noisette Sweets, runs after us down the block to give us a baggie of canelés, exclaiming, “These are really good! Try some, I forgot to recommend them!”
And most obviously, I witness it at my part-time job at Butter&, a bakery in the Dogpatch of SF, where locals excitedly enter our new shop.
“I’m so glad you all are in this space! I remember when this used to be Kin Khao!”
“I used to come here all the time, back when it was Piccino’s Noon All Day!”
“This spot is so gorgeous. I walk by it every day, but now I finally have a reason to come inside! When did you guys open?”
Working my best front-of-house smile, I’ll reply peppily, “We’ve been around since 2017, just down the street—but we just opened our retail store last month!”
“I heard!” some would say. “I saw that you guys had so many issues with the renovation, especially the floor tiles?”
“Oh yeah, we had these gorgeous black-and-white tiles done, but the city made us redo it all,” I’d explain, not from my experience but from the stories of the owners and other employees I’d heard. “It took over $15,000 to redo the floors! And it delayed our opening by over a month.”
“Well, I’m glad you guys are finally open. This space is so beautiful. Congratulations, you must be so proud!”
I feel like an imposter whenever I chat with locals like this—I want the owners and employees to hear the praise directly, without me intercepting. I feel like I don’t deserve the congrats, since I hadn’t fought through all the hardships and built this business from the ground up like they had. Here, I was also a tourist of sorts: a series of coincidences landed me a part-time gig helping run their front of house and assist in operations. We all accepted it as a temporary thing, evidenced by everyone greeting me with a “Yay, you’re still here!” when I show up for my Friday shifts.
Especially now that the pandemic has ended and folks are moving back into town, it’s easier to picture the city coming back to life. I wonder if there’s a part I want to play in its rebirth—if there’s something I can do to contribute to the warmth I feel from the small businesses in our neighborhoods or the positive aspects of San Francisco. I’m not about to start a small business, but I do wonder what it’d look like to grow the spaces I’ve been enjoying lately.
I don’t have any answers; I only have a small nudge in quiet moments: If you’ve reluctantly accepted that you love this city, why not give back to it? Perhaps that’s why I’ve been so fascinated by communities and third spaces lately—they seem to gather others with the same inklings that I have, as if we were kindle huddling around a campfire.
I’m still learning what civic engagement and community building means to me, but it feels good to accept that as meme-worthy as it may be, San Francisco is a place I can see as a long-term home.
That’s all for this week—sorry that I don’t have a tidy end for it; it just means I have more processing and learning to do still. 😅 In the meantime, here are some spaces I’ve been in recently, alphabetically listed with Google Maps links, if you are so inclined to explore:
Arcana, an event space/plant shop/wine bar in the Mission
Founders, Inc., a laboratory and studio for tech builders (oriented toward AI, Web 3) in Fort Mason
Founders You Should Know (FYSK), a Slack community and local monthly event connecting SF founders and talent
Manny’s, a long time event space/restaurant/political bookstore in the Mission
Minds Matter Bay Area, a volunteer organization focused on helping low-income high schoolers get into college (I’m part of the leadership/admissions team here!)
The Center SF, a yoga studio/cafe/spiritual center open to the public
The Ruby, a coworking space for women and non-binary writers in the Mission
The SF Commons, salons/discussions in a shared living room in Hayes Valley (I’m a member here!)
My friend Patricia also wrote a thread on Twitter about some of her favorite third spaces in SF. I haven’t been to all of them, so hmu if you want to check them out sometime.
