Daly City, California

My partner and I flew into San Francisco on Friday just for the weekend. We had been invited down to celebrate our friend Ellen's house warming. It was an incredible weekend. Portland on Friday morning as we left was all of 38 degrees. San Francisco when we landed was a balmy 60. The entire weekend was clear, warm, and fog free. I mention the last because everyone in the City while we were there were surprised at how beautiful and clear the weather was.

Ellen is living in a wonderful little house in Daly City. The house actually belongs to our friend, Diane and her mother. Diane lived there as a child in the 1970s and her mother lived there until just last year when she fell and broke a hip. She is 75 or so and after the fall could no longer care for herself. Diane was forced to move her to a nice assisted living home where she has companionship and around-the-clock care. In the meantime, Ellen has moved in and spent the last year updating and renovating the house. It looks fabulous!

Visiting Ellen and her new home in Daly City reminded me how we are all surrounded by the unique. In this day of mega-stores and multinational chains, we can lose touch with the uniqueness of our friends and the places where we live.

However, my initial reaction to Daly City was, to quote Gertrude Stein, "There is no there there." Daly City is not the prettiest city I've ever been in. In fact, it's one gigantic subdivision with row after row after row of two story homes interrupted here and there by little malls with Target stores and Starbuck Coffee shops. How anyone can pick out their own house from the myriad of other cookie cutter houses is beyond me. The houses are squat but long with a garage on the ground floor, and a small window to the left of the garage. The entrance to the house is on the left side on the second floor which one gets to by a staircase and through a small gated porch.

From the living room windows in Ellen's house, you can look out towards the Golden Gate Bridge (yes, she has a view of the bridge from her house!) and see nothing but undulating rows of houses so close that at first glance they seem to be connected. Yet, with all of the similarity each house seems to have its own personality. So, in its own way, Daly City is unique. It has a unique character that is informed by its own style of homogeneity.