As a kid, I spent a lot of time intricately tying chicken drumsticks to pieces of string attached to crab traps. The San Francisco Municipal Pier at 5am – the bane of my childhood. Some x amount of years later, I’ve since figured out my mom and her brother simply needed my sister and I to be their gateway to illegally harvesting Dungeness crab. Things were more lax then. There was minimal security and the kids at the pier almost always had their own miniature ice chests. If pier patrols were in sight, you can bet we hauled ass to the car, mini ice chest in hand. And if caught, there was that cloyingly sweet believable innocence present. Real clever, mom. To 10 year old me, San Francisco was the city of crabbing, roasted chestnuts, and that damn Palace of Fine Arts and in a way, it still embodies just those things.
My parents are mostly absent from my daily happenings, instead living vicariously through old photos, too burdened by the everyday, and much too tired to venture out of the comfort that is suburbia. So whenever I head into the city with my younger sister these days, I find myself thinking, “Maybe we should go to Lombard and take some pictures for mom and dad. Maybe we should picnic at at the Palace of Fine Arts and take some pictures for mom and dad. Maybe we should go to Chinatown, buy a shitty fleece jacket for $10, and take some pictures for mom and dad.” It’s a strange feeling, the need to recreate all these very specific memories at 23.
I mostly stray away from personal posts here because it feels all too vulnerable, but I don't dwell on spring trends or personal style much these days. Instead, my thought process consists of where my parents fit in this mess of a life I have, the ways in which I can make their everyday a little bit easier, and most importantly, how to trick them into a real vacation. "Stubborn Immigrant Parents and Vacations," a post to come perhaps!
present
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