From her office, I could see the East Bay hills in detail and the blues of the bay water and sky melding into one another. I lost myself in the serenity and beauty of being here, there, outside. As I stared at the Bay Bridge, squinting because of the bright sun’s reflection on the concrete pavement and whitewashed ferry buildings on the pier side of the street, my eyes welled. All I could think was that I was alone in a world where others were busy and I wasn’t. I never knew how to answer when someone asked me what my plans were for the weekend. I didn’t have any plans. I prayed I would find friends to be with, to go out with, to become part of their world and leave behind my aloneness. I pondered a life I knew I was missing and should be having in my thirties, just like everyone else. But I also loved being in San Francisco. I was a small part of a big world where I struggled to step on for the ride.
Turning thirty meant having the grace and maturity to handle what came my way. I found a home and made it mine. But distractions filled only a part of my weekends, and when I found time standing still, I realized I was alone with nothing but time to fill. I feared the black cloud, dark from my sadness in Chicago, blowing west to San Francisco. I had run away from it once, and though I found temporary refuge in diversions, it was still there, dormant for a while, but breaking ground as I stared out the window at the Bay and East Bay shedding tears.
I wasn’t in Chicago anymore. I was in a new city I had taken to immediately, but in time, how happy my new home made me may have been foolish thinking.
not again
After I had been working in San Francisco for a year, my unit merged with another unit in the home office. Faced yet again with the possibility of losing my job, I should have been worried, scared actually, that I would have to navigate a new city in search of work, being one with the fog blankets outside as I replayed scenes of traipsing the streets of Chicago—only these were the streets of San Francisco, and I was calm and confident that I was going to be okay and that God wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to me.
The regional manager came from the eleventh floor of headquarters to tell us if we still had a job. As experienced as I was at handling career ups and downs by now, I had to reiterate in my conversational head that I could not stop change, no matter how hard I wished for things to stay as they were, for a little while, anyway. I believed I would have a job. I visualized what my new position would be, who I would be working with, and where I would be. I sent my definitive will out into the stratosphere of positive energy. And it worked.
The RM was a young, married family man who looked as if he were about to explode. His plump face was red, and sweat popped in tiny bubbles from his forehead. His overweight body was in continuous movement, suggesting he was uncomfortable. “I need someone to help me out on the administration side, to help me with the regional management that I can’t get to. And I’m going to need a sales support officer. So I would ask that you join the western region in your same capacity but with additional responsibilities of administration support to me,” he told me. Does this mean a promotion? More money?
My concern was doing support work for a regional manager, which possibly implied long hours and number crunching. Memories of being fired by finger-pointing, waving bosses displaced my relief. Is it doing his filing? Doesn’t he have an administrative assistant?
I accepted the job and moved to a new, larger cubicle in the headquarters building outside the RM’s office, uncertain if the job or where I was located was good or bad. I became his right-hand person.
Deb and Carol, two coworkers, and I became instant friends and each other’s support. One of the sales guys and the office funny man, took the three of us out for lunch. But the enjoyable lunch with the funny man backfired. The RM’s dance of dashing about the floor started with hovering at my desk, down a few doors to the funny man’s office, and then back to his office, but not before stopping at my cubicle first. “Don’t ever be gone that long for lunch with Deb and Carol again. There’s no one here handling calls.” Could he have said that any louder with his finger wagging in my face? My eyes popped with surprise and then squinted in anger. “But … he took us out, we had to wait for a table, we’re back now …” And furthermore, I thought in hindsight and wished I could say, Don’t ever wag your finger in my face again, and if you have anything to say to me, please say it behind closed doors.
What is it with these finger-waving-in-my-face bosses? I wondered.
As I was preparing to leave late one morning for a flight back to Chicago for the holidays, I was sure the RM was purposely holding me up by repeatedly saying, “and one more thing,” asking more questions, and requesting my help to catch up for his lost time. Finally I was forced to say, “No, I can’t, I have to go now.” There would be no issue in needing to leave to catch a flight if I were a member of the good-old-boy camaraderie; however, I was a female among the banker gents whose numbers assured their managerial power. Just because I worked directly for a good old boy didn’t necessarily mean I was included in the network.
Saying no to my boss was an exercise in growth of my confidence and a leap of faith that I wasn’t going to get another finger-wagging reprimand in return; however, I believed the RM thought my assertiveness was a challenge to him. I wanted out; our personalities clashed.
Contrary to an assumed yawn factor during bank sales conferences in the fall, where sales figures are posted in countless creative ways and sales officers boast of their achievements, I had an opportunity to travel to new destinations for these meetings to meet new people from other bank offices, and to be challenged in a dynamic learning environment. All this helped me to discover and develop more of my interests.
The following spring, there was a move to split the functions of my job and to create new job positions. What can I do to get this going? I wrote a report outlining job descriptions and responsibilities with flow charts and graphs. I sat in meetings to answer questions in order to help the head manager understand our jobs and responsibilities better. I made myself known to others with the intent of proving myself so others would want to hire me based on my knowledge and performance on the project.
I believed in me, and in so doing I realized my job did not define me; I had a job, not a career, and that was okay. The division between work and my personal life became clear. I was eager to develop more of me with passions and interests that included the nurturing and connection of friends—contrary to a banker’s life, where work life dominated and the personal was secondary.
sliding into place
Unlike the seasons in Chicago, San Francisco’s went unrecognized. The change of seasons was subtle for me, with only the calendar months marking their transitions.
January in San Francisco can offer beautiful weather for someone from Chicago. It’s chilly, but nothing a few layers of clothing or a jacket can’t remedy. Locals would say, “Oh, the rain this time of year! Won’t it ever stop?” But I saw the sun and the sky perennially blue. I would read the Sunday paper while sitting on a bed of green grass at the Palace of Fine Arts with Enya singing softly in my ears from a tape player in hand. The sapphire sky was unobstructed, enabling the sun’s warmth to blush pink in my cheeks.
When I walked home from work, the darkness of winter accompanied me. Since I couldn’t discern much, if any, of my view along the way, I relied on my senses. I smelled the bay water and heard the lapping of the waves rolling in and clashing against the rocks along Ghirardelli Square. I felt the refreshing cool damp air on my face and was delighted that my skin was being nourished at this time of year instead of exhibiting scaly white patches from the dry Midwest winter. The lights of the Golden Gate and the East Bay bridges were my guide, as dots twinkled against a dark and even darker shaded backdrop. The quiet and serenity was my meditation. My aroused senses kept me company, as I was not alone in darkness but surrounded in gratitude. In discovering more of me, I welcomed the many connections that came with my sensory openness.
In my early thirties, I measured
myself against others as I questioned where I should be in life. But all the “shoulds” were not me. I preferred to make my own meals instead of dining out, take my own nature walks close to home instead of traveling to parks. I preferred to watch sailors maneuvering their boats in the bay rather than take control of one myself. I never thought I was missing out. Being alone was a comfort, a triumph I that could do it and be okay. The pieces slid into place like destiny; rough edges found their match. I was in a good place in my head and in my soul. I had a life I loved and renewed confidence that I didn’t necessarily need a special someone to fill empty pockets.
I would walk into the Bus Stop, a sports bar, on my way home to my apartment after work. I was comfortable there, my new social gathering place, to watch Chicago sports on television screens suspended from walls. The patrons were young like me, regular regulars, older gents, and groups of businessmen and women who had their usual spots at the bar. The bartenders and bouncers looked out for me; they knew I was alone.
“Your Bears aren’t doing well in this game,” George said in a deep voice. He was standing next to me as he watched the football game overhead on the television screen.
“Shouldn’t you be watching the door or something? Isn’t that what they pay you to do?” George laughed more than he really needed to, so I talked over him. He was from Texas, and his belt buckle and cowboy boots told you so.
“Nope. Not on duty. I get to watch TV screens instead of doors today.”
“You’re for the Bears?” asked a different man standing at the other end of the window. He was skinny, with a mop of brown hair. His thick, tall, dark brown eyebrows almost met in the middle.
“I am, and I’m from Chicago with a good selection of sports teams. Which game are you following?” I asked as I pointed to the four suspended TV screens.
“Detroit.”
“Are you from there?”
“No.”
“You’re not from here, are you?”
“No.”
“Okay, then, so where are you from?”
“North Dakota.”
I looked hard to locate his blue eyes because they were almost covered by those caterpillars sitting above and behind outdated glasses too big for his narrow face.
I never did think Mike was from California. I found his nonconformance to the fashion statement of the San Francisco preppy male appealing. His jeans and flannel shirt appeared shrunken to fit his frame and were more in style of the Northwoods than Union Street. But then I didn’t look like I was from Union Street either with my Midwestern Levi’s, hard-soled shoes, and a sweatshirt.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I work here.”
“And what do you do?”
“I work for a bank.”
Ugh, another banker. The last people I wanted to know were bankers. My track record of making friends with bankers outside work was not good. Advertising remained in my mind and my blood, being one with creative and marketing people who wrote mini-stories to sell products. I was of the advertising side of the brain, not the analytical side.
“I work for a bank, too, but I’m not a banker,” I declared.
I reminded myself I had a job and not a career, and that I was no longer driven to be back in advertising among the advertising types, who I thought were the only ones who could be my friends.
One Friday afternoon, at first glance from my desk, I saw an unknown person plodding through, dragging a large duffel bag. Could that be Lexi? The holidays were approaching, and she had come from Seattle to see me before I headed to Chicago.
“Hey, you made it.”
“Yep, I did.”
“How was your trip?” I said.
“Okay, fine, great,” she said, catching her breath while looking around to see where she was.
We picked up where we’d left off in college eight years ago. Seeing her was an affirmation of the distance I had come. I didn’t see the years that had gone by and all that I had experienced since, but instead I saw my friend, someone I immediately knew, familiar. She was a part of my home, a connection.
With only a few days to visit in San Francisco, Lex and I strolled along Union Street and stopped at the Bus Stop, where she met Mike. Automatically, all three of us were comfortable with each other.
When asked for a restaurant recommendation, Mike suggested E’Angelo on Chestnut as the best place to go for Italian. Then he asked, “So, what are you doing for Christmas?”
“I’m going to Chicago, but I’ll be back that first week in January.”
“Maybe when you get back we could have dinner or something,” he suggested shyly.
“Oh, that would be great. I’d like that. I’ll see you when I get back.”
Lex and I left the Bus Stop and headed back to my apartment.
“He’s a nice guy. You mean you haven’t gone out with him yet?”
“No, I’ve only seen him a few times, when I’ve stopped in there. I really don’t know him.”
“You both seem like you know each other well and you’re pretty good friends already.”
Mike called me shortly after I got back to ask me to dinner—on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. E’Angelo, the restaurant Mike recommended, was a small, bustling Italian place with fragrant house red wine that tasted like the scent of Christmas trees. Their pasta dishes were as authentic as the Italian waiters who served them.
On cue, we bowed our heads, stuck our noses to the glasses’ rims, and captured the house wine’s bouquet—yes, it does smell like Christmas trees. I took a sip.
“So, how long have you been in California?” I asked.
Mike put his glass down, , and hesitated before speaking.
“Oh, I was down the Peninsula for a while and then moved up north.”
“And how long have you been in this place on Broadway?” I asked, sipping again.
“Not long, just a few months.”
I sipped more as if to mark pauses, allowing Mike to offer more information about himself. My curiosity warranted further question-firing. But he wasn’t telling me a whole lot about himself. The more he told me, the more curious I was.
The waiter had appropriate timing. He stopped to take our order. The pause gave me a temporary reason to back off with the questions and consider I was being pushy.
“So … you were down the Peninsula?” I held back from sipping to see if he would follow my leading question with an answer.
“I’m actually divorced … well, almost. It hasn’t come through yet,” he said.
Ooohh, okay, now I understand. I drained my wine glass; Mike refilled it.
“I’ve got a stepson, too.”
I didn’t push with further questioning. I heeded my internal call to back off, acknowledging this was just a first date with no expectations.
After dinner we walked around the Marina. Being with him was easy. The pending state of his final divorce gave us the reason to initially be two friends who were not from San Francisco and who had come together to share time and to get to know each other. But time gave way to my new way of living—being with someone who was occupying more of my space and time. When my perspective changed, I realized we were really dating.
I had never known dating like this before. In my twenties, my experience of dating was a one-shot wonder where we both enjoyed our evening and each other, sharing compliments, and then I never heard from him again. I was programmed to not really understand the meaning of having a boyfriend but to refer to it as “dating someone.” Now, my “dating someone” was driving me to work, making dinner, running errands with me—including a trip to Macy’s for a cream-colored silk blouse—all with a sparkle in his eye and a smile on his face. There was no difference with us as “just friends” or “dating.” There was no definition for getting to know one another, because exploring who we were to each other as best friends was as much a connection as the natural progression to intimacy.
I was ready to have someone in my lif
e. Mike’s waiting period for his divorce to become final gave us a pause to become friends and discover each other separately before we discovered each other together.
Friday afternoons were reserved for weekend planning. Mike immediately assumed the weekend-planner role when he called me at work to discuss what we were going to do.
“Hiya. It’s me. Can you leave early at all so we can go to the Wine Bar to start our weekend?”
“No, unfortunately. It would be nice, but I’m here till five, remember. I’m just an underling.”
“Okay, no problem. So, where do you want to go eat after that?”
“Not sure. I’m just trying to get through this afternoon.”
Mike gave me a ride home from work that afternoon and again started in with the planning.
“So, what’s up for this weekend?” Mike asked as I hopped in his car.
“Huh? This weekend? I don’t know. I just finished work. I haven’t begun to think about this weekend.”
“Okay. Well, I thought Saturday, after our errands, we’d drive down to Palo Alto to see my aunt and uncle, and then they’ll probably want us to stay for some wine, and then there’d be dinner out and then maybe Sunday, after laundry, of course, we’d take a walk …”
“Whoa, wait, hold on. Can we please talk about this a little later? It’s too much. You’re always planning my weekend. I have no time for myself. You’re always in a hurry. I can’t be like that. I just can’t anymore. Too much!” I yelled.
Silence.
That evening I called him and apologized for the tone, but not the words, when I’d had enough and blurted out my feelings, because I knew instantly I had hurt his. Perhaps this wasn’t working out. I was controlled by him. I needed a time-out.
Under the Birch Tree Page 21