I’m a Bay Area native. After going to college in Oregon and marrying an Oregonian, I relocated to Oregon, Pennsylvania, and then back to Oregon again. My best friend since infancy, Jessica, moved from college in Santa Cruz to Colorado and then to San Francisco, where she and her husband had a rent-controlled, well-lit one-bedroom near Fillmore in Pacific Heights.
Through our friendship, Jessica and I made frequent trips back and forth to each others’ homes, no matter where they were. Usually, we took a food-cation and played tourist in our own cities. We went rafting in Colorado, tried our first cannoli at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, ate all the ice cream in Portland before SF got its own Salt and Straw, and walked way too fast for my spoiled, flat-living legs around San Francisco.
After my husband surprised me with the bombshell that he wanted a pandemic divorce in June 2020, I asked him to text Jessica because I couldn’t bring myself to contact anyone and say divorce myself.
I was decimated. I was in bed.
I should mention that very conveniently as was the case right then, Jessica grew up to be a psychiatrist. In her BFF-with-mental-health-and-medical-training way, she coaxed me out from under the covers and helped me have my first conversations about what was happening in my marriage.
She talked me down from my first, but sadly not last, anxiety attack and we determined that I needed more than texts and Marco Polos at this time. I needed my friend.
We planned a secret Covid-19 trip. Usually, when I go visit Jessica, I flex all over Instagram.
I take pictures of my food. I take pictures of the water. I take pictures of the hills she makes me walk up to get food and see the water. This trip, though, was clandestine. She hadn’t been on call at the hospital in two weeks and was seeing patients virtually. Her husband was home, too. I was seeing no one outside my own household. We popped our bubbles.
I told no one, not even my dad who still lives in the East Bay — sorry, dad— secured my N95, boarded a near-empty plane, and absconded to San Francisco.
Usually, I take a Lyft, but Jessica and her husband, Ari, were able to pick me up this time to limit my exposure to others. I got in the car, took off my mask, and breathed fresh bay air for what felt like the first time in an eternity. My face was scored with marks from the N95 and I hadn’t had any food or water on the short flight to minimize the need to move the mask around. I hadn’t had much of an appetite the last couple of weeks anyway. Now, in the cool air of an SF summer, I wanted a burger. A meaty one. They obliged.
We picked up burgers from Roam, brought them home, sat down at the table, and were munching along when I heard a noise that sounded like when the recycling truck pours a full bin of glass bottles into the truck bed.
Jessica was facing the fire escape window and her mouth dropped. (Let’s remember that she’s a psychiatrist.)
She is on call in hospitals where she sees people going batshit crazy — my term, not hers — has to keep a straight face, and pretend that everything is normal. Jessica stood up, knocking her chair over behind her.
“Oh. What? Oh my God!” She exclaimed.
I didn’t understand. I peeked out the window.
A building exploded next door. Black smoke curled up into the previously blue sky and bright orange flames blared up above the skyline.
Jessica, the doctor, called 911. Ari started running around the apartment, looking out all the windows and making wordless exclamations like a puppy who sees a threatening squirrel on his property. He ran from room to room, grasping his skull.
“What the — ” He kept saying.
Meanwhile, I calmly, rationally, closed all the windows so the impending smoke wouldn’t get in. I peeked at my carry-on bag and wondered if I should be putting on my shoes. Then, I glanced longingly at my burger, wondering if I had time to scarf it down before our inevitable flight to safety. My heart rate was steady. I’d been having daily anxiety attacks at 7 a.m. every day since my husband made his declaration.
My poor little trauma brain had just exploded in its own way. A building next door wasn’t going to send me into a panic. My body told me this was just another box to tick off the to-do list.
Hire an attorney. Check.
Find a new house. Check.
Flee from a towering inferno. Check.
We decided to go up on the roof to see what we could see. We were the first up there but others joined soon. In all the commotion, most of us forgot to wear our masks, so we tried to hide our germy faces and keep the smoke out by pulling our shirts up over our mouths. A nice neighbor lady came up and told us that, on her Citizen app, which I’d never heard of, there were reports of an isolated grill fire getting out of control, not a terrorist attack or systematic failure.
We watched the flames lick the top of the building and talked through our shirts over the sound of crackling fire and sirens as the flames turned to smoke. We knew they were spraying down the building and no one thought there was any danger to us. We went downstairs and ate our cold food, watching the smoke continue to billow.
“This is my fault. I caused this.” I said. They laughed. “I bring destruction.” I was mostly kidding. Mostly.
Ari flipped through the channels until he found a news story. It was a barbeque fire. Everyone got out safely. The noise I heard was all the glass exploding out of the windows, so the residents were displaced until it could be replaced, but everyone was okay.
I was okay. We watched Hamilton on Disney+. We talked for hours. I slept. I woke up to the happy houseplants in the windowsill and the fresh air streaming in. We walked past the building that was on fire and watched the rebuilding begin. We walked the quiet streets and ate takeout for two blissful days. We watched Waiting for Guffman. It was almost normal. I went home and dealt with my divorce.
Sometimes it takes a shock to the system to get you out of your own head.
Sometimes it takes a friend telling you what you know, deep down, is real.
I didn’t cause the explosion. Either of them. Sometimes it takes a change of scenery, even if the scenery was briefly on fire. San Francisco, you dramatic, wondrous thing — I love you so much.
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