San Francisco, Day 7.

Almost missed my flight. The security line moved so slow that, at the moment my flight began boarding I was only halfway through it, having already invested fifteen minutes in waiting. I asked a few people if I could cut ahead but at least one offered resistance so I took a chance and left the line. I spoke to the woman who initially checks boarding passes and asked if there was a way I could get ahead. She told me to go to my airline's counter and so I did and she escorted me to the much much shorter first class line. I ended up not being the last person to board but I was in the last handful. Much closer than I like to cut it. Now I'm on the plane and will be home soon. Today I'm not sure it feels like home but it will once I get there.

San Francisco, Day 6.

It's my last day, my last full day, and I find my way back into my old building, into the backyard.

I shot pictures of so many people back here. From Barton to Jeff to Joe to Richard, so many stops along the way, and it was here that my photography grew from a habit to what I hope could be a career. It doesn't look like much but somehow I made it work for me, over and over, and so I need to pay some homage to the space.

More important, really, is that this odd little parking lot with the red fence served as the view out my window for six years. My life on the east coast has picked up a lot of threads that I had let drop when I moved away almost a decade ago, so I like to joke that my time in San Francisco never really happened. But it happened, and it happened here, overlooking the space where I stand.

I can't have it back, but as it happens, life treads forward. A shocking discovery, I know.

San Francisco, Day 5.

The weather begins to turn a bit, drifting back down through the eighties to rest somewhere in the seventies. The fog approaches. This rare moment of actual summer in San Francisco won't last.

It's a good day. Lunch with one friend, a person I should have been closer to when I lived here, and dinner with a couple who I truly miss. In between there's a nap, or two, a few pictures, maybe a hundred, and the gym. It's especially comforting to use a gym that's so familiar, but I know I'll have that soon enough at my new gym.

As my trip winds down I feel a bit sad that I can't, physically can't spend as much time with all my true friends here as I'd like. I realize there's more people here who mean a lot to me than I'd previously thought. I feel a tug. I feel forces pulling at me as if they could keep me here, and I feel the tug that I almost wish I could stay.

Concurrent to that, I feel opposing forces, pulling me home. The time is coming soon for me to leave this dreamland again, and when it does, I'll be ready. It would be nice, if possible, to spend time in both places, but it isn't possible and I know what my choice will be. I know where I belong.

San Francisco, Day 4.

7:20 a.m. I find a tiny swath of sun on the concrete ledge outside the gym and sit with my first iced tea of the morning, though I've been awake for two hours, and a cigarette, not my first. I'm only there a minute when a stranger approaches. "Can I have a cigarette?" he asks. I give him one, hoping he'll leave, but he sits down next to me. "Do you want to take my picture?" he asks. "Sure, your tattoo," I say, and snap two shots of the tattoo on his arm. "So what did you do last night?" he asks. "I went to bed early.. midnight," I say. "Oh," he says. "I went to bed at eight o'clock, three days ago." I assume this means he's been up ever since. "Do you think I need a haircut?" he asks. "There's a barber right over there." I'm pretty sure the barber, which is actually a fussy hair salon, is not open yet. "No, you're good," I say.

8:13 a.m. As I pass the man in the suit, he smiles. "Good morning," he says. We're the only two people on the street, Market Street. "Good morning," I reply and keep walking past him. A moment later I hear behind me, he says, "VERY cute." I turn back to see him looking at me, and I smile again. "Thanks," I say.

8:22 a.m. Dean texts me hello. He doesn't know that I can see him, crossing the street, just a half block away. We go to breakfast at La Taza, which used to be something else before it was something before it was something else. Everywhere is like that here. My pancakes are delicious but my eggs taste like fish.

11:03 a.m. I arrive at Peet's a few minutes late to meet David, but I expect he's going to be even a few minutes later than I am, since he has to come down the hill. I see my friend Vince and I tell him I've sort of moved back to Philadelphia. He feels my forehead, as if I'm delirious, and his hand is freezing.

1:22 p.m. I walk David to his car, and we hug goodbye, with a very tentative plan to see each other later. The hug doesn't feel like a goodbye, but an affirmation of the connection we've always had.

7:05 p.m. I cross the street, jaywalking, to go say hi to Martin, who I just saw on Friday night and finally became Facebook friends with the day before. We've known each other four, maybe five years and always enjoyed one another's company. "I never knew you were such an amazing photographer," he says. "Me neither," I say.

7:20 p.m. Sitting outside the gym, waiting for Kurt to finish his workout, a stranger comes up and asks me for a cigarette. I give him one, offer him a light, but he has his own lighter that he struggles with for a painfully long time. He's clutching a plastic bag full of medication bottles and once he gets the cigarette lit he turns backs to me. "So what are you doing?" he asks. "I'm waiting for a friend," I say. "Oh," he replies, as if I've confused him, and walks away. "You're good," I say, to no one.

San Francisco, Day 3.

Last night, I drank too much. Not at all surprising. I don't drink much but when I do, it tends to be more than I probably should.

It was mostly fun, hugs from people I'd not seen in months and repeating versions of the same script: New York is good, technically I live in Philadelphia but I'm rarely there, and no, I'm not planning on moving back here.

I argued with a person I should never have been friends with in the first place, said things I shouldn't have, and regretted it. It colored the rest of my night, a bit darker. I drank more, to forget that exchange, and it almost worked.

Today I woke up early and got myself out, hungover but handling it well, and had a really pleasant brunch with my friend Joe. We hung out for a few hours, walked around, and after I said goodbye to him I found myself perched outside the gym, like I used to, waiting, but not sure what I was waiting for. Emotions began percolating inside me and I knew it was just the hangover, but... some had started to take hold.

I came back and talked to Kurt. We sat on his fire escape, me smoking cigarettes, and talked, about nothing and everything, like we used to. He went inside to get his day started and I stayed a moment, listening to a song in a playlist that Richard had just sent me, and the music triggered more emotions. I sat there on that fire escape, watching the reflection of the building across the street appearing in the cars that drove past, appearing and disappearing, and I finally let myself feel: what I'd lost by leaving this place, what I'd lost since, how I'd changed since I'd arrived here almost eight years ago. I covered my face as I cried, even though I knew no one could see me there, and I let myself cry for a moment, watching reflections.

I feel better for the release. I know it's just that I drank too much last night. I come inside and see Kurt sitting at his computer, and I smile. The cycle of my arrival and departure from this place may have served only one purpose, but it's an important one: All I've ever wanted is to be loved, and I am. I see that now.

San Francisco, Day 2.

It's not quite 9 a.m. and I feel like I've already had a full day. I had forgotten this lopsided quality to my life here: so much activity in the morning that the rest of the day sometimes felt empty. I don't think that will happen today because I'm only here for a week so I can't take my time here for granted as I could when I lived here, and my friends and close acquaintances aren't taking me for granted as they might have when I was always around.

At Peet's I see people I knew well, not so long ago, chat with some people I didn't know so well, and even meet new people. That's a possibility that never even occurred to me.

I haven't been gone long enough for people to forget me, as they have in Philadelphia, and the truth is, I haven't even been gone long enough to people to realize that I've left. A former neighbor pops his head in to ask me if I've moved out of the neighborhood. I haven't seen you in a while, the girl at Peet's says. I've forgotten that not everyone can see my Facebook updates, and maybe I even forget that not everyone would want to.

I remember at this time last year I was haunted, tortured by inappropriate, seemingly uncontrollable feelings for a friend of mine. He stops by too, fitting, as this is the place where we first met. His smile still makes me smile, but a year later, we're both different people now.

I've already had a full day and there's so much day left. I should go back home and get something to eat.

*

Is it possible that my visit could be going so well?

Firmed up some plans for other things to do, people to see this weekend and into next week. Wandered to Dolores Park with Kurt and made my first trip back to the Safeway. I admit, I miss the Safeway more than maybe anything else about this place.

Tonight I'm thinking I'll go to the bar that I used to go to on Friday nights, even though going out, and drinking, have really not been a big part of my life since I left here, hoping to see a different segment of people that I've known here. I guess I'll make my report tomorrow on how that goes. Dinner and TV with Kurt now.

San Francisco, Day 1.

I got in late last night. Very late. My flight was scheduled to arrive at 11 pacific time, but due to some sketchy weather on both coasts, I ended up arriving over three hours late. Not my idea of fun, but it was surprisingly heartwarming to cross the security boundary in the middle of the night to find someone who means so much to me, camped out waiting for me. I was happy to get to Kurt's place safely, and settle in. At nearly 4 a.m., which my body treated as 7 a.m., I was sitting on the steps smoking a cigarette looking over at the darkened windows of the building that I called my home for six years. It felt longer than that, and sitting there, it felt like no time has elapsed at all, but time is truly an illusion, a constraint we've created for ourselves. Sometimes I feel like I've been cut loose from its boundaries.

I woke up at 8:30 and quickly got myself out the door to get some caffeine, to Peet's, my old haunt. I wondered if I'd run into anyone who'd noticed me gone, but expected that I wouldn't, and I didn't. Fine. I was able to get back to Kurt's and get some breakfast. Then I returned to Peet's, adopting my traditional role of "fixture in window," and since I've been here I've talked to just one person, and waved at another. To be expected. This is how it was when I lived here, inconsistent, and this is how it was when I used to return to Philadelphia as a visitor after I'd moved away from there.

So far, everything is going according to plan.

I expect I'll wander home (and by home, I mean Kurt's place) soon, after I finish processing some photos, after I finish writing this, and maybe he and I will go for a walk, into the Castro so he can show me everything that's changed, and then I'm going to have lunch with my friend David. While sitting at Peet's I see a few other regulars, have a few pleasant exchanges.

I'm neither as sad nor as excited as I thought I might be to be here.

So far, everything is going according to plan. Easy enough to accomplish when there is no plan.

*

9:30 pm. I'm calling the day a success. Had a really nice lunch with David, and we headed deeper into the Castro and parted company. As I walked back to Kurt's from there I ran into no less than five people that I knew to varying degrees, stopping to chat each time, and it made me feel, as I'd hoped, welcome and missed. I may not need to live here anymore, but I feel like it may always be a place I can return to.

Back at Kurt's I went down for a nap that lasted a lot longer than I'd planned, but given how little sleep I'd had the night before, I can't much complain about that. Now we're going to get dinner. Possibly Taco Bell. Just the good old days, as it were.