If you were to ask me what heaven feels like, today I might respond, “Heaven is the feeling I had while standing in Jack Kerouac alley last Sunday – amazed, bewildered, connected, alone yet so embraced by everyone and everything as I asked myself, ‘Am I really here, in this spot, where so many great poets lived and walked and wrote and loved and experienced these same cobblestones, these same staircases, these same benches in this same bar?’ Yes, this is what heaven feels like.”
San Francisco is known for many different things: Cable cars, Harvey Milk, Alcatraz Island and the prison that lives there, picturesque landscapes. My most important connection to San Francisco these days is the poetry.
The poetry that lived there and the poetry that lives in the very air still hovering along the Golden Gate bridge and the over-the-top sexuality in the Castro district or in the smell of sourdough and sea food on Fisherman’s wharf.
Since this still-new-year began, I have specifically sought places where the poets who went before me connected with ideas, words and images.
My 2012 Five-hours-North-Poetry-Pilgrimages are my personal zenith in this “never fails to take my breath away” city.
In January, I visited Ina Coolbrith Park in Russian Hill. This slice of a hillside is an homage to the first Poet Laureate of California, the now little known poet who was also the first Librarian in the City of Oakland. Until the devastating earthquake of 1906 she lived in a cottage right at Taylor and Vallejo streets where the view stares Eastward, toward the intellectuals and free thinkers and artists in Berkeley, in Oakland, in Emeryville. The scene was different then but the curiosity of the geography continues to raise questions and ideas in me.
When Ina's home was wiped out and many of her research and unpublished writing perished, she fell into a depression and left the area just like she left the page. She was so loved, her friends raised money and had another home built for her. Later, the city built this park to honor her memory.
When I traveled there, I was so devoted to being present to the experienced, I refused to leave when my family said, “You must.” It became my “moment of channeling Ina Coolbrith.” I laugh now when I remember standing on one of the staircases with my passion longed to be fulfilled. I stood and said NO, so I would be able to continue to feel presence where a memorable poet once lived, once breathed, once walked.
I wanted to walk her paths. I wanted to feel the stones her feet felt as I studied her life and words hungrily. I had absorbed dates and facts, now I need to absorb her spirit though the places she lived.
Since then, the area has lured me more than ever before. My current fascination is the Women of the Beat Generation. To get to know these women, I am entering into the usually thought of as men’s mileau. First up? Kerouac, Ginsberg, Neal Cassady and others roaming in the places they inhabited with the women they have historically overshadowed.
Sunday I stood on the edge of a one block long alley. The sign post read: “Jack Kerouac (Adler)”. I hesitated to put my foot on the cobblestones that lined the alley much like I hesitate before I step into prayer Labyrinths. “Am I worthy of stepping here?” is the question I live as I slowly walk into this sacred space where the creative energy pulses still. I can feel its evidence in the walls that surrounded me.
My eyes slowly surveyed the murals, the unique tile work, the cobblestones surrounding plaques which held quotes in English and Chinese by an equal amount of men and women.
Taking photos to hold these moments where my feet touched such wisdom was much like reciting silent prayers.
On my first (and only, so far) visit, I did no writing in the alley.
Adding my words may have been too much for my heart to bear. I honored the moment with my own word silence, treasuring to let the words of Steinbeck, Angelou, Wilcox, and Chinese Proverbs all lead to the central swirl of Kerouac: “The air was soft, the stars so fine, the promise of every cobbled alley so great.”
In this moment of perfection, the only thing I needed to add was my focused breath, my awe, my remembrance and my devotion to carrying on as a poet, a kindred, a deep lover-of-life.
Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She teaches a teleclass/ecourse "Discover the Power of Writing & Telling Engaging, Enlightening Stories" which begins again March 5, 2012. Find details by clicking this link.
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© 2012
Julie Jordan Scott
Julie, this is a wonderful post! You are so lucky to live in a place where you can enjoy so many of the beauties of life. I love the pictures of you and the quotes because they say so much about who you have chosen to be. Awesome!
Posted by: JayrodPG | February 21, 2012 at 02:46 PM
Wow... I can feel your love and respect for this area and of the women that walked there before you. Beautiful, simply beautiful.
Peace,
Morgan
Posted by: Morgan Dragonwillow | February 22, 2012 at 02:27 PM