After many years thanks to Face Book I was able to get in touch with an old friend, a beautiful lady full of vigor and joyfulness to be with. Elyze Stewart was one of the members living at 191 Haight Street, in San Francisco where I met my late wife Nancy who was also a resident there. I was introduced to the small community of residents through my Zen buddy David Carlson who was also staying at the old Georgian apartment building with many rooms on the corner of Octavia and Haight. I was then living on Army Street at the junction of Mission and Army. I was renting a section of a room of what used to be a Sears Roebuck Building that was abandoned and converted into apartments for artists studios. I shared a room with another artist by the name of Rory something can't remember his last name. Together we had show at the place which was part of the San Francisco Open Studio Exhibition. It was in this building that I experienced the Loma Prieta Earthquake of 1998.
San Francisco earthquake of 1989, also called Loma Prieta earthquake, major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area, California, U.S., on October 17, 1989, and caused 63 deaths, nearly 3,800 injuries, and an estimated $6 billion in property damage. It was the strongest earthquake to hit the area since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
The earthquake significantly damaged the transportation system of the Bay Area. The collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct (Nimitz Freeway) caused most of the earthquake-related deaths. The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge was also damaged when a span of the top deck collapsed. In the aftermath, all bridges in the area underwent seismic retrofitting to make them more resistant to earthquake
Remarkably, the earthquake struck just before the start of the third game of the 1989 World Series, which was to be played in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park between the two Bay Area baseball teams, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. The disaster’s occurrence during a major live television broadcast meant that news of the earthquake, as well as aerial views provided by the Goodyear blimp, reached a large audience. The baseball championship, which was suspended for 10 days, would come to be known as the “Earthquake Series.”
I had just got home from work where I was working as a produce buyer for a company called Del Tomaso. I was tired and had just plopped myself into bed when I heard loud popping sounds like gunfire coming from around me.I got up as fast I could and headed for the door of my room and as I was about to step out something dropped right in front of me from the ceiling with a loud pop. I looked down and noticed that there was a small fracture in the concrete floor like it was gouged out from a powerful impact and looking up at the ceiling I noticed the pipes hanging from the ceiling were undulating like a snake moving up and down away from where I stood. I realized that the popping sounds were made by the nail hooks that were holding the pipes up to the ceiling and they were pushed out violently as the pipe bounces up and down. I quickly moved to the main door frame and stood in the doorway and then the it all went dark. Some came and held on to me apologizing for doing so and what we heard was like the sound of a locomotive bearing down towards the building outside and then silence. A child was crying in the room next to mine and phone rang somewhere. The lights came on a few minutes after I heard the lady who was clinging on to me said, "That's my phone!" She took off and returned a few minutes later to tell me that her friend who was in Tokyo, Japan, had called her wondering if she was okay and that a section of the Bay Bridge had collapsed and that the marina was on fire and all these came from the News that the Good Year Blimp was transmitting, The Blimp was covering the Baseball World Series when the quake hit.
Instead of taking my nap I took a walk all the way to 191, Haight Street, taking the Mission Dolores Street just to see how much damage was wrought by the quake and to see how my friends were doing. It was not to bad as far as damages but some cars were still sounding off the alarm making it all seem like all hell had broken loose. I had been visiting my friend David Carlson every chance I had as he was fun to hang out with and it so happened that it was also his birthday the day before and I took with me one of my Litho prints of a mask of Yamantaka, one of the three Demon Protectors of the Dharma in the Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism to give it to him as a birthday present. It was when I met Nancy who was sitting in the living room looking worn out and down in the dumps. This was how I actually saw her when I first laid my eyes on my later to become wife. I was in need of someone in my life and as I was looking at her I heard my mother's voice in my head saying,"You always look for the beautiful women in the past, here try someone who you consider otherwise and see if you can find the beauty inside of her'.'I say this with all sincerity and truth as i can still see my late wife as when I first decided that I was going to have a relationship with her. It was not love at first sight, it was more of compassion at first intention; I will draw out the beauty from within this woman.
Perhaps it was an egotistical and narcissistic to view a person, but it was how I felt at the time and I have kept this feeling inside of me till now; never shared this with anyone out of my love and respect for my late wife for she turned into an angel and a mother to my children until illness claimed her life prematurely.
Perhaps she too had perceived me with the same mixed feelings when she first laid her eyes on me, I never did found out, but we were married at the Green Dragon Zen Temple about a year later with her carrying my son inside and delivering him ten days later. The Devil is in the details as mentioned in my earlier posting quoted from the novel ''The Game of Thrones." so I will not delve too much deeper into what my relationship was like with my late wife and I would consider it water under the bridge. All I need to say is that I loved her and that I feel that I had succeeded in bringing out of her the inner beauty that I felt was trapped within as when we first met at 191, Haight Street, in San Francisco.
Even though it is considered counter productive to keep looking back at one's past according to most spiritual schools, I still find it to be a catharsis toward the healing and liberating of my splintered soul. In writing all I can record of my past especially in my relationships with others, I find solace and peace in knowing that I was only human and was never perfect, but I did my best to be present and fully committed at whatever situation I was in. I was and still am aware of my imperfections, my weaknesses and my errors as a man, However I had lived to the best of my ability a productive life. Through my reflections of what has been or could have, I find no regrets albeit for the better or worse as I in my old old age have learned that it was all charted as my destiny, my path, my consciousness that have manifested along the way to get me here, where I am. So, instead of feeling sorry and regretful, instead pf feeling remorse, I have turned it all, good and bad, right and wrong as ' grist for the mill, my compost pile out of which I grow new and wholesome thoughts and feelings about who I am. If I am asked why I spend so much of my time writing about my self, this would be one of if not the answer. #lomaprietaearthquake #1989worldseries #earthquakeseries #
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