“Love is the capacity 
to take care, 
to protect, and 
to nourish.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

The western side of San Francisco’s Sunset District, from Lincoln Way to Sloat Boulevard, has become a sacred space for me. It’s a place where, as Thich Nhat Hanh suggests in the quote above, I am able to take care of myself, protect my sanity, and nourish my soul.

There are a few contributing factors which make the neighborhood of my first eighteen years such a special place. 

First, there are the memories… memories of playing soccer and baseball at South Sunset Playground, attending Saint Gabriel School, riding my bike around the neighborhood, bagging groceries at Fairlane Foods, buying brown lunchbags filled halfway with salted French fries at Freddy’s on Vicente Street, attending classes at Saint Ignatius during my high school years, playing soccer for the San Francisco Vikings Soccer Club, delivering The Shopping News, getting birthday cakes from the Golden Brown Bakery on Lawton Street, playing with friends in the trees along Sunset Boulevard, and so much more. When I walk or drive through the Sunset District today, these memories, and so many more, often come to mind.

In recent years, I’ve become a regular at Java Beach Café — both of them. The original Java Beach is located at the corner of Judah & LaPlaya, just across the street from Ocean Beach. The other location is at the corner of 45th & Sloat, directly across from the old main entrance to the San Francisco Zoo. Walking into either of these coffee shops is, for me, much like it was for “Norm” walking into the popular Boston bar on the TV sitcom Cheers. I won’t go so far as to say these are places where everybody knows my name. There are plenty of customers at Java Beach who have no idea who I am, but the workers at both locations know me quite well, and in recent years, I’ve gotten to know many of the regular customers and developed a close friendship with the owner, Pat Maguire.  

I’m writing this article on Monday morning, sitting at a table in the Sloat Java Beach. I drove up from San José to enjoy another spectacular day in The City. It’s unusually windy, but the temperature outside when I arrived at 7:15 was already 65º. It’s going to be a warm one. I’m planning to do a lot of walking — along Sunset Dunes (the old Great Highway) to Golden Gate Park, through the park to Stanyan Street, then… who knows? I have an entire Monday to explore The City. The temperature this afternoon is expected to reach 80º!

I’ll write the rest of this post when I return home tonight.

10:00 p.m. Monday ~  It was an amazing day. As I had planned, I walked Sunset Dunes from Sloat to Lincoln Way. Then I worked my way through Golden Gate Park from the Great Highway at the east end of the park at Stanyan Street. Since I was there, I decided to take a stroll through the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, stopping at a few places of interest along the way.

At that point, I gave serious consideration to taking the N-Judah streetcar back to the beach. Instead, I began my walk back to the west side of The City. When I arrived at Java Beach on Judah a little after 6:00, it was already closed, though some of the regulars were outside with a variety of musical instruments playing songs from the 60s and 70s. After a brief hello, I continued on my way southbound along Sunset Dunes to where my car was parked at 45th & Sloat. In all, it was a ten hour walk! My blog post tomorrow will be a “photo-blog” with pictures I took along the way.

For now, I just want to rest my body.