issue 35|san francisco diary (part 1)

“6 7 3 9”, she said from behind the counter to the man who shyly stepped inside the coffee shop as a Radiohead song was playing. He was one of the thousands of unhoused people living in the city. I hadn't been in San Francisco twenty-four hours yet, and I had seen more people living in the streets than I had in the past few months in Amsterdam and Brussels combined. The man stayed in the bathroom until my breakfast arrived, leaving just as I was halfway through my overpriced Açai bowl. On his way out, he asked the server his name.“Mike.” “Thanks, Mike.” “No problem, man,” Mike replied. The man waved before stepping outside, back to his belongings—a large trash bag filled with everything he owned. His kindness contrasted heavily with his reality.

I left the café bearing as a name the French translation for wake up, and walked down Columbus towards the iconic Transamerica Pyramid, past a few more unhoused souls. One was shouting an unclear lament, another lay down in a slumber close to death, and another choreographed suffering into a dance. What a spectacle of a society’s failures, I thought as I found myself at the foot of the pyramid to discover a quiet haven in the midst of madness. The seating areas had the allure of a five-star hotel terrace, with outdoor furniture dressed in dark beige cushions. If it wasn’t for the sign that said Redwood Park, I wouldn’t have assumed it was accessible. It had public art scattered all around the gigantic Californian trees. I gathered a different understanding of why buildings were so tall in this part of the world, man needed to compete with nature. Never had I seen such majestic trees in my whole life (I only was going to see some more in Muir Woods days later). It amazed me to discover serenity surrounded by concrete. There was a security guard, so no wonder the unhoused wouldn’t venture here to rest and sleep. I took advantage of my privilege and sat down on a comfy sofa, and started scribbling thoughts in my California Notebook: “I  long to capture this moment, this silence—a stark contradiction to the brutality of inequality.”  

I have been fascinated by the paradoxes of the USA for decades, a curiosity that led me to pursue an MA in American Studies twenty years ago. How is it possible to love a place that has created so much pain across the world? How is it possible to feel connected to a geography and its cultures in such a deep way, without having any more connection to it than through popular culture, music, art, films… Cultural imperialism and soft power, imagination and illusion. “Destruction leads to a very rough road, but it also breeds creation” the Red Hot Chilli Peppers sung in 1999, “Sicker than the rest, there is no test, but this is what you're craving […] Dream of Californication.” 

I called my father to tell him I was in San Francisco. Smiling and humming a well-known song, my baba replied, “Make sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” A few days later I saw a girl with blonde curly hair, dressed in pink and blue with asymmetric tights, one leg with vertical black and white stripes, the other one all white. Like a millennial Alice in Wonderland, she was bouncing her way through Mission Dolores Park carrying a collar made of freshly picked daisies hanging down from the tip of her fingers. The flowers were floating in the air as she was moving with the carelessness of a free creature, spreading little dreams around her. 

My body got synced with Pacific time almost immediately. As if I belonged here and not in Central European Time. Home started with one of my languages, as I downloaded the Lyft app while waiting in the long but smooth queue and process of passport control at the airport, I found myself in Sabri’s car, a migrant from Türkiye who had left a life in agriculture behind in pursuit of the American dream. He had taken on cleaning jobs, and now, as a Lyft driver, he spoke with conviction: “When you work hard here, you can make it.” As we drove, he pointed out how everything in the Bay Area was running on the internet—just as a Google self-driving car passed us by. Our conversation shifted to nature, to Yosemite National Park, which he adored and had visited twice. Then, he pondered why our home country struggled to promote its own natural beauty as effectively as the Americans did. Soon, we entered a neighbourhood lined with blocks of unhoused people. “Çok homeless var burada ve kimse ilgilenmiyor,” Sabri remarked, notably leaving the word “homeless” in English.

I will hear two more conversations in Turkish during my stay where the word was used in English while speaking in Turkish. It was a refusal to translate, an attempt to protect one’s language. Sabri made an intriguing comment on how these people seemed not to just be abandoned by the state but also by their own families and community, as if he couldn’t comprehend the possibility of loved ones allowing such descent into nothingness. I am not sure how much of it is realistic or just naive thinking, either way, he wasn’t making a statement but rather opening a door for further reflection. And maybe that’s why he couldn’t translate the word “homeless” to Turkish. He couldn’t bear to bring that word into his reality. After all, his family was not in America, and the only thing that kept him going was the ability to work. 

My body started to remind me of my europeanness around seven pm and I decided to beat slumber by wandering aimlessly in my new neighbourhood of North Beach - aka little Italy, where cross walks are painted green, red and white, and the air is filled with live music and laughter, sprinkled with the occasional SFPD sirens and smells of charred meat and crusty pizza. I traversed Jo DiMaggio’s hood, felt the ghost of Marilyn Monroe as I looked up to the church they hadn’t been allowed to marry in because they both were once divorced. “How could it hurt you when it looks so good” Madonna sung in 2003. There’s a gutter of violence between joy and beauty.

I dragged my sleep-deprived body and overwhelmed mind back to my hotel, unwillingly following an unhoused man walking in front of me, a stained blanket which used to be white on his back. It looked heavy, yet he was wearing it like a cape, floating in the night at each of the man’s determined and confused steps. At the crossroads between Columbus, Chestnut and Taylor streets, he started jaywalking with the carelessness of a captive. Cars coming up and down the hilly streets were slowing down, letting him be, bringing his body under the traffic spotlight, transforming him, in one very short moment, into a hero ready to fly away and reach the stars. I decided to fall asleep on that surreal thought. Hollywood always finds its way. 

Despite the large avenues, the endless blocks and steep hills, I decided I would not let go of flaneusing. That’s, after all, how I discover places, how I inhabit a city, and how I end up finding myself in movement. I always find myself in movement. 

After a visit to the SFMOMA, I decided to go up to Alamo Square, via Mission Street to the Civic Quarter, then up Grove Street all the way to the “painted ladies” - the pastel-coloured homes made famous by several films and TV series. I thought it would be a smooth walk to the neighbourhood hosting the Central Library, the Justice Department, and City Hall. I had heard Tenderloin was the part to avoid, but had skipped the warnings about South of Market (SoMa) and Mission. After a couple of blocks from the museum, the landscape started to change, and I found myself block after block among the hundreds of unhoused people and a heavy presence of police on many corners, a tableau more disturbing than unsafe, as it was during the day. I was wearing my cap and did not stare at anyone, but I also forgot to put my camera back inside my bag, it was hanging next to my pocket and I hid it as best as I could. I did not want people to think I was there to document anything, I have no interest in photographing misery created by systemic racism and the failures of neoliberalism. 

Once behind City Hall and through the Symphony and Opera buildings, the streets started to be less crowded, more residential, lined with beautiful Victorian houses, and a lot more hilly. I eavesdropped on a phone conversation of a woman speaking in Turkish for a few blocks, learning she had a housekeeping job with a rich woman who got angry she left her alone for too long to go out for a walk and threatened that she could easily find another housekeeper if she did this again. Where would I go, the Turkish speaker lamented to a friend on the phone, I don’t want to go back to New York, I love it here, the weather is perfect. Florida? That’s way too hot, she added. As she talked, we walked by an unhoused man sitting on his carton made sofa, he shouted “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” and we both just continued, ignoring him. Her interlocutor must have asked what was happening as she replied, “Bişey yok, homeless bağriyor”, confirming there was nothing to worry about, just the usual homeless guy shouting.

She also used the word in English, just like Sabri did. She went on complaining about their high number and that she didn’t understand why they wouldn’t work, after all, they were citizens in this country and receiving state support. To her, they were abusing a system while she was working hard to make a living in a country where she could lose all her rights if she did not work. From her perspective, they were at fault because they have the privilege of citizenship, unlike her. A discourse I heard from another migrant worker from Türkiye, also a Lyft driver, a few days later. The more I observed, the more involute all the paradoxes were getting, yet I wasn’t about to let assumptions and fears dictate how I was going to experience this strange geography. After all, Marlena Shaw sang it, and so did Marvin Gaye,  

It's all in the air
You hear it everywhere
No matter what you do
It's gonna grab a hold on you
California soul
California soul

🔜 stay tuned for the second part of my San Francisco diary, which I will send in two weeks (on 19 March 2025) instead of waiting until next month. I hope you enjoy it 💛

A FEW THINGS THAT MAKE ME THINK AND FEEL…

• A true gem of a book I had found at the Perdu bookshop during last year’s Read My World festival in Amsterdam: Say Translation is Art by Sawako Nakayasu, a Japanese-American poet and translator whose work you can also read on The Poetry Foundation website. I have recently shared this book in a workshop series I gave and will again. The physical edition published by Ugly Duckling Press is zine-like, a pamphlet, as the publishers call it themselves. And if you cannot access the book, do not worry, here is a digital version made available by the publisher. Do get yourself a physical copy if you can because it’s the kind of book you’d love to go back to more than once.   
  

• During my San Francisco trip, I had the chance to catch a screening of the film Muchachas de Uniforme (1951, Alfredo B. Crevenna) as part of a programme at the BAMPFA (BERKELEY ART MUSEUM & PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE) curated by Berkeley-based queer film historian, writer, and filmmaker Jenni Olson. The film is a Mexican remake of the 1931 German film Mädchen in Uniform (which is considered to be the first lesbian film ever made). A version without subtitles is available to watch on YouTube. The film was followed by a discussion between Olson and Juana María Rodríguez, a Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley.
  

• And while we’re at the BAMPFA, let me also mention an exhibition which truly inspired me titled Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection, curated by Cecilia Alemani, Donald R. Mullen, Jr. and Margot Norton, with Tausif Noor. The exhibition brings together more than seventy artworks from the Shah Garg Collection (built by Komal Shah and Gaurav Garg, their foundation also supports scholarship and public engagement highlighting the achievements and innovations of women artists). Making Their Mark juxtaposes contemporary practices with pathbreaking historical works to illuminate transgenerational affinities, influences, and methodologies among artists from the postwar era to the present. Each piece makes you stop and reflect, and it is curated wonderfully into themes that allow you to engage with the work on a deep level - whether you want to be mesmerized by beauty or pushed to reflect on contemporary issues through the perspective of the artist. It features among others works from Joan Mitchell, Etel Adnan, Simone Fattal, Faith Ringgold, and so much more. It is an exquisite collection and there is also a beautiful catalogue. 

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Canan Marasligil (she/they) is a writer, literary translator and artist based in Amsterdam. She established the attention span website and its newsletter to publish their work independently: making the time to reflect, analyse and imagine.

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