On Golden Pond
Posted by Jonathan Grantham on January 22, 2011
Went for a walk this morning around Lake Merritt. The walk caused me to pause and reflect about why I love living here so much. Oakland is a beautiful city in so many ways and is so misunderstood by people who don’t spend time here. I was one of them.
Having lived in San Francisco for my first 6 1/2 years as a bay area resident, I saw little to no reason to travel over the bridge to Oakland. It may as well have been New Jersey in terms of geography-a place I’d never been and didn’t care to go. Granted, I drove the 580 to Pleasanton every day for work, but Oakland was something I passed through via the freeway on my way to somewhere else.
Since moving across the bridge 3 years ago, I have developed a big crush on the land of oaks. One of the first things I noticed was “Oh, so this is where everyone in their 30′s went!” I love San Francisco, too, but for very different reasons. It was a place I came to from Michigan to unknowingly reinvent myself. It is a city steeped in a tradition of self-discovery and as such, the city is a reflection of many of it’s residents. I loved that, but I outgrew that.
I feel settled, relaxed and at peace here. Like any major urban center, there are problems. But somehow to me, the problems here seem shared in a way that they didn’t in San Francisco. It feels like home in that we as residents are in this together and are trying to make it right. Far less self-serving-it’s not about what I get out of it, it’s about what I put into it.
Off the soapbox for a moment…
No place is perfect, but this place is home. I’ll never have another place to call the place where we bought our first house together, or had our first major relationship crisis, or our first major relationship reconciliation, or our first break-in and certainly one of our first breakthroughs.
I’m not blind to the imperfections, but I’m one who loves an underdog. And this is one underdog that’s got my back so I do the same in return.
To Oakland, with love.
JG
