San Francisco Rain

When I was a bachelor in San Francisco, I lived on Union Street, in the Cow Hollow section of the City.  One of my favorite days was when I was home and it rained, not poured, just a steady rain.  I used to go walking along my street.  On a bright tourist sunny, warm day, or any night, my street was crowded with visitors, shoppers, and fun searching people.  But Californians don't walk in the rain unless they have somewhere to go, like work or theatre.  My street was empty.  I put on my London Fog long coat, my water proof walking shoes, brimmed hat and meandered.  The shops were open, though all the front doors were closed, and they were empty of customers.  Like a nature forest, nothing was going on, unless you knew how to look.  The surprise moments happen that way in the City.  I stopped to look at one wood-framed store.  The wood was once a tree in the forest where it was born and grew up.  Then it was uprooted, handled by modern technology, and molded into the frame of this store, pained yellow. It now provides the store with warmth and dryness inside. But is it still a tree?  What about me?  I am uprooted too, from my Bronx home.  Technology, education, corporate America, relationships all have molded me in some way.  Some ways the tree and I have changed, at least in how we look and function.  But somethings don't change, if we know how to look.
                                          Woodiness makes a tree.
                                          Terryiness makes me.

Give yourself a hug.  Oops! Starting to cry.  Gotta go.