Cable car, good hair, breeze

Before this trip, I'd never ridden a cable car. I've been to San Francisco too many times to count, but have hurriedly tucked into taxis, shared a ride or hiked up and down hills. I've seen the cable cars, heard the familiar ding of the bells as they slow to let passengers on and off. I've always wanted to ride in one, but I felt silly asking the Not Boyfriend to let me tourist-out and hang off the poles when we could be sitting in some tiny restaurant or hiking somewhere together. Once, I asked him to take me and he laughed like I was joking. 

"I'm not joking!" I insisted. But I was smiling around my seriousness and we never did take that ride. 

Feeling silly suddenly felt silly last week when I promised Lil E we'd take a ride or two on a cable car, an adventure for him and maybe really more something for me. 

"Really? You're serious?" the Not Boyfriend asked when I told him we were going to take a cable car on our trip this time. He wasn't surprised I wanted to take E. He was surprised I wanted to go so much. And that I hadn't spoken up already about it. And even more surprised that I hadn't ever been on one.

Then, because he is the compassionate planner he is, he made the plans, paid for the tickets and directed our route on our first cable car adventure. I just loved it all -- seeing the city from atop the hills, steadily gaining speeding downhill, the bell that first lured me in. I loved the brash conductor who nudged us into a prime seat so Lil E could get the full cable-car experience.

I loved the cast of tourist characters talking loudly, excitedly as we passed Chinatown and the most crooked street in the country and slid into the downtown terminal. Most of all I loved the rare San Francisco summer sunshine on our legs and the breeze in our hair -- especially the breeze in E's hair.

He's grown out his hair into full surfer style -- slowly, steadily, individuatingly -- since spring. It's this sign of him becoming more him, and I see it as he carefully combs his bags over with his fingers in the mirror. His world is expanding as his sense of self does, and I just love leading him along to all these different cities. I want him to be thrilled to see the planet. I want him to be curious and humbled and happy to find new places. I want him to hike mountains, bodysurf waves, walk museums. And ride cable cars.

Without feeling silly or being afraid to ask. 

Watching him, eyes open and hair blowing back, I felt full of the city, cozied up with my loves, and my heart clanging like a bell inside the noise of the city.

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A farewell to San Francisco

We are mid-air on an excursion that began at 4 this morning. I got up, put on the clothes folded neatly beside my bed, brushed and flossed, straighened my bangs, reheated the last cup of yesterday's coffee. I put on several layers of concealer, plenty of mascara, a good swipe of lipgloss, and then I tucked my cosmetic bag into my suitcase. It was 4:35 a.m. by then and time to wake up Lil E.

He was cold, he said, coccooned in his blanket in the pitch dark room cluttered with chapter books and Legos and quarter=treasures and a 6-foot cardboard Chewbacca overseeing them all.

But five minutes later he was dressed and had his backpack on and was sitting patiently on the couch. His bedhead ws outrageous, and he was smiling.

This trip is our farewell to San Francisco. It's Lil E's first time there and could be my last for a long time. But what we are saying goodbye to is the time that has been, to the nearly three years that I have known and loved a man who has lived 2,100 miles away. In a month, the Not Boyfriend will be living in our city.

I am arriving to be at the Not Boyfriend's send-off barbecue in Crissy Field, to feel the protective arms of the Golden Gate Bridge stretch over me as we drive it one more time, to eat the most amazing fried Brussels sprouts at B Star again, to breathe in fresh air from open windows to curb the nausea while the car speeds up and down hilly streets. I will share a last round of complaints about the winter weather in August and skirt the shady side of the street in search of small stretches of sun where I can find them. I will see my friends -- the ones who I have seen on nearly every visit I've made to SF, those who I've somehow missed, and those who I have not seen enough even though I have made myself at home only blocks from their apartments when I've chosen to stay under covers and undercover with my love.

For Lil E, this last time will mean many firsts. Visiting Alcatraz, bouncing through House of Air, a streetcar ride, seeing the bridges in person, finally meeting the children of some of my favorite blogging friends.

And he will see where the Not Boyfriend has made his home all this time. This might be the most important reason for this trip -- so that Lil E can grasp how far the Not Boyfriend and I have come, and how far he will go next month for us. I want him  to feel a part of it, to get what the mileage means.

Of course, this won't be the last time the three of us are in San Francisco. Business will always be bringing me back to the area. And the Not Boyfriend's friends and their babies will be here. I like to think that the Not Boyfriend and I will come back often enough so he still feels at home in the fog and at the bars and running his favorite paths by the bay.

I like to envision the two of us walking hand in hand there, pointing out the hotel lobby where we first kissed, the restaurants where we loved to cozy up to the bar and share entrees and bottles of wine, the Ferry Building farmers market where we sat on the sidewalk and ate scrambled eggs anddrank persnickety Blue Bottle coffee (he, a soy capp and me, a skim latte).

I hope one day when we are old and moving slower, we will take our time over these landmarks where we dared to let a crazy, far-off kind of love make its home in each of our frenetic lives. 

For now, we will try this city out, the three of us together, an inaugural experience, a send-off that will propel us back to Chicago and on to a new adventure. 

The goodbye to this city will really only be a "see you later". The farewell to the life and times is something much bigger that's only a few weeks and a final few-thousand miles away.

Need the backstory on our love story?

* The Not Boyfriend meets Lil E's dad

* We three: our first trip together

* How Skype saved our long-distance relationship

* The first (not)boyfriend to meet my boy

* How the Not Boyfriend and I met, 20 years later

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We found the happy place

We've found a place for the Not Boyfriend to live. Right here, in our city. 

Even better, it's only blocks away from Lil E's school. It meets the requirements - bright, full of light, a good kitchen and place for a dining room table that will fit many friends for Sunday evening dinners. 

The Not Boyfriend has seen photos online, and more photos that I texted him as I toured it with the realtor in linen pants and fancy-man loafers. He trusted me when I said it was the place, and days and scanned applications and approvals later, it is his for the next year.

We'd looked at places together while he was in town a few weeks ago, but nothing was a fit. We'd scoured listings, comparing notes on Skype, but stayed protective and realistic. He might have to stay with us a while, put his things into storage, do the dance of quick-paced rentals once he meets the moving truck in the city after a cross-country move. 

That's what we reasoned, but that's not what happened. And with the text confirming he's the new lessee, I exhaled. 

He'll be here soon. And then, the Not Boyfriend will be minutes away. MINUTES AWAY. I was worried for a while, holding my breath that something might fall through, that it might not all work out as we'd like. But now, now I can just be excited to sit  at that dining room table right next to him.

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