Walking stories

When a Valentine isn't enough

February 11, 2023

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, Sunday, the day of the free pancake breakfast at the corner of Page and Baker.  It’s a celebration organized by the folks who put together and preside over  the neighborhood sing-alongs, in addition to the folks who were successful proponents of making permanent Slow Street status for Page.  I like the people; I like the vibe.  

This morning I notice that in preparation for not only the breakfast  but for Tuesday,  Valentine’s Day, multicolored neighborhood valentines have been strung between parking signs at that corner.   This is the second year the sing-along folks have made that happen.  A few days ago, an email from them asked if I wanted to “send” anyone a valentine, and provided a form.  The one I sent was dedicated to those good organizing elves, neighbor-gatherers, for all they have done to turn us into a community.

Of course, I checked when I walked by to see if I’d been mentioned.  And there it was, hanging from a string, along with tributes to others. Greenberg was cited as the mayor of Baker Street, I as his attendant. All of this was a blanket tucked around my positive feelings, extra warmth that seemed proof of the possibilities of caring about not only friends and family members, but also about people living in the next house, or maybe two houses away or even around the corner.    

As the years of the pandemic have progressed, and the singing has continued – along, of course, with the dog-walking – I have learned the names of some, but not all,  of the neighbors.

Soon after we got Greenberg, I was walking along Page Street when a guy on a skateboard with a leashed dog in tow came barreling towards us on the sidewalk.  Greenberg was on a leash, but a woman walking a few steps behind me was accompanied by her small black dog, unleashed.  When that dog darted toward the skateboarder’s bigger one, the bigger one pulled at his owner on the skateboard.  And the owner released a vicious tsunami of profanity at the woman for having her dog unleashed.

He whooshed by and was gone in a few seconds, but I turned to offer the woman some sympathy.   “I just had a hip replaced,” she said,  motioning to her dog, “and it’s easier for me to walk him if he can’t pull me. That’s why he’s not leashed.”   I murmured something sympathetic and went on my way.

I’d see her frequently after that, always walking her very obedient little dog – some sort of Chihuahua mix – often smoking.  She was tall and thin, in her early sixties, I think, kind of nice-looking and somehow seeming a bit lonely.  There was something about her, some shadow,  that made it seem as though she had lived through some hard times.   I wondered whether she’d had a drinking problem. 

We exchanged first names, admired each other’s dogs.   At some point, after a literally passing acquaintance of a few years, she hinted that she’d had some kind of trauma in her life, a mention made so casually that it was as though she thought I knew what had happened.  But it didn’t feel right to press her for details. Every time I saw her, I was reminded of my  hunch that she’d survived trouble. 

She was a regular at the sing-alongs, always cheerful and  often sitting on the curb, admiring someone’s baby, savoring the friendliness of the occasion.    Everyone knew her by name.

Walking across Duboce Park last Tuesday, I see her,  sitting on a bench with a peachy-looking red-headed young person.   Her little black dog is with her, off the leash and having a good time sniffing at the grass in the park. Our meetings on Page Street always had been by chance, and it doesn’t  occur to me until this moment that I haven’t seen her for a while in the few blocks of my regular dog-walking loop. 

I say her name; she says mine.  She jumps up from the bench and gives me a hug, as I start to mutter something about not having run into her for months.    “This is my daughter,” she says, introducing me to this peachy young woman.  “And I am Leah,” I say,  “pleased to meet you.”

The mother skitters around the pavement and tells me her story, leaving out large hunks of detail but providing enough to get the picture.  She had some kind of crisis in October, “an assault,” she says, and wound up suffering some sort of breakdown for which she was hospitalized.  When she was released, she tells me, her Page Street landlord had changed the locks on her apartment, and she was left without a place to live.

She had registered for public assistance, and with a housing coalition in the Tenderloin.  So she is now living in an SRO – one room, bathroom down the hall – in the Tenderloin.     At some point in her telling of this, her eyes moisten and I put my arms around her and hug her.  Her daughter sits by at one end of the bench.

“Are you getting help from a therapist or some kind of counselor?” I ask, not really knowing the roots or dimensions of the problem.  She says she’s had lots of therapy over the years.  I can’t bring myself to ask why.

She tells me she was so sad to leave Page Street, and that she misses it, hates where she is living. “Do you see some path to lift yourself out of the Tenderloin?” I ask.  Not really, she says.  She can’t get a job, because if she does, she will be thrown off public assistance.

“I am so sorry,” I say, and I really mean it.  “You are missed around the neighborhood,” I say, but in fact, I  hadn’t noticed that she was gone until now, months after she was thrown out of her place.

I tell her about tomorrow’s pancake breakfast, and that I’m sure everyone would love to see her.   I nod at the daughter, we hug again.  I wish her well  and I walk home with Greenberg.

Maybe I will make her a valentine to string up with the others.  That’d be easy to do.   I’d be surprised if she shows up to see it. 

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