Morning will arrive, and my husband with it (San Francisco fog)

We drove toward Santa Rosa at two in the afternoon, when the fog, which had been absent all weekend, began to roll in. In the distance, the plumes of the Mount Diablo State Park fire had begun to show; I would read about this massive fire later, when I was home in Philadelphia. On the Golden Gate Bridge, pedestrians stood watching the bay fill with the yachts of the America's Cup.

By six that evening, on the way back to the airport, the fog was dense and blowing hard—so fast that it seemed to be on a chase of some kind, escaping something. I felt chased with it, but not escaped. It would be a long ride home in a cold plane that hurtled through winds—turbulent, noisy, a little panic.

I am always glad to be home. Always grateful for this quiet place and for my handsome husband and for the things we do that keep me grounded in a life that moves too fast. We talk business over lunch. We rearrange the house for client photo shoots. We watch Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance and Master Chef and congratulate the winners, discuss the losers, allow ourselves to be seduced by the idea of the "real" in reality TV. And when I cannot sleep at night, and these days I so rarely sleep at night, I always know that he is up there, near. That if I really cannot bear the weight of so many things, morning will eventually arrive, and my husband with it.

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A few images from a blessed trip west

And not many words, for I am exhausted. (They don't call them Red Eyes for nothing.)

But, in order: Amber, Lara, Tamra, Stephanie, of Chronicle Books, who made my day there so special. Huge thanks to all four floors of the Chronicle team—so many working so hard, and so kindly, on behalf of a book we all believe in. I held Going Over in my hands for the first time. My friends, the packaging of this book is spectacular. The people behind the book are spectacular. And Tamra Tuller is more dear than she will ever know. Thank you, too, to Ginee, for hosting a dinner I will always fondly remember, and to Summer and Esme, for being first readers.

And then, at Book Passage, where I conducted a memoir workshop with truly talented writers, and where I spent extra time with Wendy Robards, who drove hours to join us. A beautiful moment. And then the opportunity to meet Linda Joy Myers, memoir workshopper supreme, in person. I'll be having a live tele-conversation with Linda (who is also the president of the National Association of Memoir Writers) later this month. Details are here.

Later that day, at Books, Inc., another memoir workshop, and time with my first Penn student (and muse from my corporate fairytale, Zenobia), Moira Moody Kuo, who is glowing as a new mom. Moira grew up and became a great teacher herself. She also became my first student to make me a pseudo grandmother. Moira, how could you? And also: I am honored, and thank you for your gifts and card.

Early the next day, I walked miles upon miles, to see (again) parts of this city I love. The fog had rolled in. The wild sea beasts were sunning. A dog had put on its shades.

And finally, a long ride to wine country, Santa Rosa, with Brian, the best driver ever. A man who has, as it turns out, driven many friends of mine—Ruta Sepetys, Jayne Anne Phillips, D.J. MacHale, Buzz Bissinger, among them—and who makes us all feel special. I spoke to a packed room of writers at the Flamingo Resort. I also met Vicki of Copperfield Books who had, she told me, laid the groundwork for my trip out west, by making one very special request of Gotham.

I'll be forever grateful. Thank you, Gotham team, for making the trip possible.

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Holding on to the Just Then

We climbed to the top of Russian Hill, and for a moment, everything was ours.

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Jewels in the Square

We'd walked all morning, up and down hills, until at last we returned to Union Square, just to sit. But there is always something alive and happening in that seat-terraced place, and that day it was Jewels on the Square, a performance of Latin Jazz by high school kids who had salsa in their blood. So the sun streamed down and the artists cycled through their songs, their instruments, and mostly I sat facing the crowd, watching the faces of the mothers, friends, neighbors, strangers who had gathered.

It was as if the children belonged to all of us. As if they glorified us with their talent.

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Holly and Me in the Winds of San Francisco

You didn't think you would leave San Francisco without seeing me, she said, and afterward I thought how impossible that would have been. Not seeing this brilliant writer and photographer and fearless adventurer, not braving the wind with her. We could have had tea, or hot chocolate, or something sweet. She chose, instead, to invite me into the Grace Cathedral, high on the hill, where the voices of four cantors filled the stone hollow, and where there were candles to be lit, for those we loved. The candles were our prayer, she said. They were our bridge, our friendship.

Later, we posed like the Beatles in the street. We posed like kick-line dancers on the wide walk of a hill, just ahead of its steep.

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Fog Curl and Cliff Erosion

San Francisco, ultimately, is weather and terrain. It's fog curl and cliff erosion, the stooped back of ascent and that moment (exhilarating, triumphant) when the hills turn in your favor and you are tall in a tall place; you have achieved your point of view. You have to think before you go here. You have to decide how strong you feel, how badly you want, how much you are willing...then you set off, you acquiesce to the whip and the rise and the fall.

It is cold for August. The fog has a mind of its own.

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Losing my Heart

Don't leave your heart in San Francisco, my friend e-mailed me, just as I was about to board the plane. I hear it happens.

But the thing is, I am forever leaving pieces of myself behind. Losing myself in the fog.

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To San Francisco

My father is making it possible for my two boys and me to travel to one of my very favorite cities in a few weeks—the city of hills, San Francisco. I never stop walking when I'm there. I never stop going up and down and in and out, looking over and past and through. I am happy in San Francisco. I find gifts there for people I love—the sorts of things that don't exist where I live. I find happiness just in moving through, in standing on street corners, in watching tango dancers in the square, in waiting for a light to turn green beside the likes of Tracey Ullman. I like the bookstores. I like the people. I'm in love with San Francisco.

And I'm empty here. I have been, for awhile. I'm in desperate need of the new. New streets. New people. New photographs.

Do you want to know who my father is? I will tell you. He sent a letter, and in the letter he wrote: "It would gladden my heart if you all would take a few days off together and go somewhere you could enjoy building a fond memory. Do it," he wrote, "for Grandpop."

We will.

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A Poem

Ruby Heart
(Beth Kephart)

In the white saucer of your car through the dark
we drive Tiburon to Berkeley —
the water wide to our either side,
the earth collapsible and folding.

Not the garden, not the wall of black and whites,
not your daughter in the halo chair now sleeping,
not the fortuneteller with the horns for ears,
the vectors for lashes: Not yet.
The blue house is not yet.
The street you’ll make from the highway
on this Monday is impressionable, not yet.

Still us only, driving. Still the car that elicits envy
for how it forces our abandon, gives us nothing
to hold onto but our own faith in our own right
to another day. Still the faulted land
and the bay so complete it would sink us
like the minerals we have, after all this living become.
You ruby red, the color of heart.
Me sapphire, sky beyond sky.

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