I've changed the title of this post at least four times.

Lately I've been feeling the winds of change stirring the leaves of my life out here in San Francisco. Two of my new roommates have decided to move down the street together, I've been dumped with no explanation, and cutting cheese is simply not as fulfilling as it used to be. Not to mention that a lot of wonderful people I have met and befriended and fell in love with during my time in this town have left for places with names such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, and the Czech Republic. I've always said I would give San Francisco at least five years, but I think what I meant is that I would give myself to San Francisco for five years.

For four years, two weeks and five days now I have let the currents of this wild and woolly city rock me too and fro: from the highs of seeing Tank Hill, Grace Cathedral and Ocean Beach for the first time to the lows of getting my wallet stolen twice in one week, my face (literally) smashed into a brick wall and the realization that (almost) everyone moves away eventually. But now I feel as if I am finally (and gratefully) washed up on the beach along with tall cans of tecate, ironic beards and american apparel v-neck t-shirts. I stand up and see the jungle before me, and beyond that, the mountains of success, of satisfaction, of a deep and permanent happiness. There is a question written in the sand, a question written by those who came before me. It reads:

"What next?"

Well, I have been wrestling with that question for the last month now. At first I thought I might move to Portland. Then came the fever dream of becoming a cartographer. This was extremely vivid, and included both a name ("Parsnip") and a gimmick (navy blue boarders on all the maps) for my future artistically-bent map making company. Along the way I thought I would buy a car, a mid-eighties Mercedes-Benz station wagon converted to run on vegetable oil to be precise. Bi-weekly camping trips would surely clear my head. Or perhaps I would take up Zen practice more seriously, maybe even become a monk. Hell, maybe I would finally put my BA in Theatre Arts to use and look for work at a reputable San Francisco or Portland based theatre.

I attempted to get back to my childhood, to think of what made me happy as a child. I was so much wiser then. I remembered drawing plans for secret clubhouses and maps revealing their locations. I remembered creating whole cities out of legos and populating them with tiny yellow people. I remembered reading science fiction stories of settlements on the Moon, of aliens coming to Earth in peace, of spaceships charting the unthinkably vast heavens. I remembered wanting to be the first man on Mars. I remembered "Tintin" and "Little Nemo In Slumberland." I remembered when I first struck on my personal concept of beauty, sometime around 7th grade perhaps. It went something like this: "A mountain range, a dense forest, a shining ocean. . . these things are not beautiful to me. A single rose growing in a dilapidated alleyway, this is true beauty." I even remembered the first day I received a letter from Andrea Liliana Zambrano Rodriguez, the child I am sponsoring down in Ecuador through Children International. It made me feel so very, very happy. And I still do, every time I look at it.

The notion is forming in my head that I will go back to school and get a masters degree and somehow end up at a creative, environmentally and socially conscious non-profit or government agency. I'm hovering around the ideas of urban design, of architecture and landscapes, of city and regional planning, of transportation reform (Bicycles!), of fusing my love of theatre (public speaking) and music ("Architecture is frozen music") with my fascination with cities and my desire to make them more habitable, more environmentally sustainable and more beautiful for everyone, everyone, everyone.

When I moved out west four years, two weeks and five days ago I had a mantra:

"I will go to San Francisco, I will get hired at the Rainbow Grocery Cheese Department."

At the time I had no idea how difficult it was (I was the first hire from outside the store in 12 years!) but I believed (and not even with all my heart!) that it would come true. And it did. And now I have a new mantra, a mantra I will be repeating for the next eleven months, two weeks and two days:

"I will be accepted into a Masters of Urban Design program on the West Coast."

"I will be accepted into a Masters of Urban Design program on the West Coast."

"I will be accepted into a Masters of Urban Design program on the West Coast."

PS I know this might all come off as too optimistic, too naive, but I believe it is precisely these two qualities which allow anyone at all to succeed in this big, dumb, beautiful, perfect world.