I grew up in New York City, where buildings dominate the landscape, making the sky and ground seem like afterthoughts to the plans and needs of the roads and grid. When it would rain, the moisture from the sky would only seem like an annoyance, and the changes in the shape of the ground would be counteracted by the needs of the city (as when the uptown-bound IRT subway comes above ground at 125th street so the electrical current can continue to flow where the earth dips in that area).
After living for eight years in San Francisco, the shape of the hilly terrain still seems to me to dictate to the city built upon it, and when clouds roll in, or rain falls, there is a strong sense of the movement overhead, a realization that I am here on a piece of the planet, and all that is around me is moving and fluctuating. My own powerlessness in this scheme is somehow reassuring.
Sutro Tower in the distance, photographed from a balcony in The Castro.
