So far in this series, I’ve written about visiting neighborhoods and libraries I’d never been to before. This time I write about a library I know well.
Potrero was my first San Francisco library. I moved to the Hill in the summer of 2014, having finally achieved every San Franciscan’s dream: outbidding a software engineer whose company had just gone public to buy a fixer-upper condo with outrageous HOA fees.
I’ve often said that moving to San Francisco made me feel like an adult: getting my driver’s license, supporting my family financially at my well-compensated job, experiencing the feeling of independence by not having my mother in my backyard.
But because I was now a Real Adult, I also convinced myself to give up things that made me feel happy and fulfilled (writing and photography), in the interests of Adulting (working all the time, commuting 100 miles a day, obsessing about the value of my investment portfolio).
Shockingly (not), I grew severely depressed. I tried everything to fix it, some of it better advised than others:
- I started a punishing diet and exercise routine
- I went to therapy
- I joined a book club called the Literate Goat.
Back then, we met every third Tuesday of the month, from 6 to 8 pm at the Potrero Hill library multi purpose room, then newly reopened after a massive renovation.
I’m trying very hard not to say unkind things about this bookclub. Candidly, it was not a very good fit for me, or maybe I wasn’t a very good fit for it. I was a woman in my early 30s with a very liberal liberal arts degree, zero children, and a very demanding career in a male-dominated industry. No wonder I grew annoyed at having to explain feminist literature to women in their late 50s/early 60s who stopped working in their youth to raise a family.
I quit going after a few months.
And while the book club didn’t stick, my relationship with the Potrero Hill library did.
First, it’s a gorgeous space, all blonde wood and glass, hanging as it does over the top of the hill, showing off that famous view of downtown through its multi-story windows.
It’s also just so wonderfully curated. Where else will you find Vasily Grossman, in translation, rubbing shoulder on the shelf with John Grisham? Where else is Dave Eggers’ absurdist Is it Right to Draw Their Fur? displayed for all to peruse? How about the first ever collection of Slavic myths in English tucked away on the Lucky Day shelf?
And what to say of the neighborhood? Again, this is so tricky to write because I know it so intimately.
To explain just how hilly Potrero is I tell people that where I lived, every direction from my house was… up. A former suitor discovered this fact after walking me to my door after a date, his bike at his hip, and swore mildly when he realized what his gallant gesture had gotten himself into. Hills in every direction off that block, the least steep at 20% grade.
I was in the best shape of my life when I lived there. Especially after I quit the punishing diet.
I haven’t lived in Potrero since 2016, but I visit often.
I’ve been loyal to La Petite Nail Shop for close to decade: it’s the only nail salon where I’m confident that the workers are treated well and paid fairly. Its owners Charlene and Annie have seen me through divorce, two broken feet, a pandemic, and several Beyoncé concerts.
I miss Provender Coffee, with its maple cold brew and Swedish cardamom buns. But I love its replacement Alimentari Aurora for delicious cheeses, charcuterie sandwiches, and long talks with its owner, Dario. Dario saved me during the early days of the pandemic with his incredible fresh pastas and sourdough bread fermented from a mother started with Anchor Steam brewing day fumes.
I will only eat sushi at Umi, and invite you only if you’re a very good friend.
What I don’t miss are (some of) the neighbors, their firmly entrenched NIMBYism and anti-urbanism views, the casual racism of Nextdoor posts panicked over a person of color walking down “their” block.
I don’t miss the heartbreak I lived through here. But as Joan Didion wrote in Slouching Towards Bethlehem:
we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.
Perhaps that’s why I return. To remember the things I lost, but also all the things I gained. Just like leaving New York made me into an adult, leaving Potrero made me into… myself.
