We’ve come to regard “marveling at the night sky” as the greatest metaphor for the human condition. Looking up at celestial bodies that are literally lifetimes away from us can make our day-to-day problems feel small and insignificant. I’m from a place where turning off your porch light and looking up reveals a full array of night sky. It’s not the same in the Bay Area. Obviously, there are plenty of ways to go properly stargazing here, but this requires skimming articles and local know-how, which I have neither the patience for nor the experience of. Instead I’ve decided to try to find stars by simply running around the Bay and looking up. This doesn’t work. Here’s why:
That Orange-Colored Sky
Light pollution is a well-known issue in any population center with more than 100,000 people. It confuses birds and tourists alike while allowing the latter to continue to walk the streets at night. It’s also responsible for blocking out any stars you might have a chance of seeing from within city limits, because something-something science.
If you’re trying to stargaze from smack within SOMA while drunkenly standing outside of DNA Lounge, then you may find yourself pulled into the rosy glow that hems the skyline from within the city. You may feel warm and dazed while experiencing a sudden need for sherbet. Whatever you do, do not walk into the glow. Resist the urge to become one with it. The glow does not know all. The glow does not provide all.
Resist the urge to become one with it. The glow does not know all. The glow does not provide all.
Crying into Your Hoodie
If you do manage to find some stars for marveling, definitely don’t start thinking about that beagle on your mom’s street back home that used to wait for you through the chainlink fence on the corner every day after school. Don’t start wondering if it’s still waiting for you or, for that matter, if it’s even still alive. Don’t think about its little nose and waggy tail and—oh my God, can anyone see your face? You’re gonna want to muffle your sobbing with your hoodie, which, obviously, is going to make it so that you can’t see anything other than the repeated image of that little dog watching you walk away every day.
I’M NOT CRYING; YOU’RE CRYING.
His Name Might Be Karl
You remember that summer at camp up in the mountains when the nights were spent trying not to trip over rocks and twigs on the way to pee and everyone tried to sing around open flames but it didn’t quite work ’cause no one could commit? And when you look up from your work desk once in a while and remember the stars from those nights, you think, “Damn, why can’t life be simple again?” and then you start trying to convince yourself that a little stargazing would help you recapture that sense of the whole world being in front of you?
Well, the best you’re going to get in San Francisco is a walk outside while wearing a light jacket and humming some Elliot Smith song to yourself, imagining that this is the turning point in the movie of your life. You’ll look up, half a smile already on your face, before staring longingly at fog. Just thick-ass, dense-as-fuck fog.
Thanks, Karl, you dream wrecker.
You’ll look up, half a smile already on your face, before staring longingly at fog. Just thick-ass, dense-as-fuck fog.
Comparison Is the Thief of Joy
Maybe what you really need is to stop looking up and start looking straight ahead. San Francisco’s nightlife offers enough bright moments for making your problems feel small and insignificant—if the man taking a dump in the planter next to you is any indication.
Take a deep breath of that stale, city air, shove your hands into your pockets and walk at a good clip to one of the city’s many bars — Zagat rated or otherwise. Get something with whiskey in it, and watch the room around you. Take a drink every time someone looks like they make more money than God but dress like they just asked their mom to order them a pizza. Make this joke to the person next to you. If they laugh, take them home.
Don’t just fuck a stranger, though. Ask them what they want from life. Ask them what they’re afraid of. Ask them about their deepest regret. Then give them your answers. You don’t need a night sky to learn things about yourself—what you need is drunk bravado. That empty feeling in your stomach you get when they leave your apartment is exactly the same one you’d get from realizing that you have to hike back to your campsite or drive home after a full night of stargazing.
If you really need stars, you can always drive out to Mount Diablo for one of their Astronomical Society nights. Or go on your start-up’s next company trip to Tahoe and hope that your social anxiety doesn’t make you drink yourself into a blackout before the sun is fully down.
