It is a strange feeling to walk the streets of a place you once used to live, like a dream. The buildings, restaurants, and cafes you once considered a part of your life are now occupied by strangers, and those persons you regularly saw but didn’t engage have moved on to somewhere else. They have, in a way, disappeared; there is a good chance you will never see them again.
Last weekend, Brian and I visited San Francisco, my home before Alaska, to photograph the wedding of two of our Alaskan friends, and it was, indeed, strange. When I boarded the plane to Alaska in the San Francisco International Airport, I had no idea that the next time I would visit the city would be with my husband, the love of my life, from our apartment in New York City. I had no idea that there was this person in the world whom I could not live without.
We walked the places that I love the most—from the west coast of the city to the north to the east, wandering through the markets in the Ferry Building, eating at the cafes that were once my “usuals,” and spending a few hours in my favorite place in the city—Ocean Beach—to watch the fog roll in off the west coast. We stayed with a dear beautiful friend of mine, Amanda—the one who drove me to the airport when I left the city “for good.”
It was strange to be in a place I once called home with the person who feels more like home to me than any place ever could. Brian and I looked at one another on the street one night, just as the light was fading behind the hills, and repeated a phrase that although we’ve said over and over again have not exhausted: Home is wherever I’m with you.
Text by Ash Adams
Photos 2010 © Brian Adams
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