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This past Thursday night I was lucky enough to be one of 30 people riding around San Francisco on a biodiesel bus. At each of the four locations where we stopped, we were regaled with beautiful stories and entertained by a talented troubadour. I can’t tell you what it means to stand outside the Women’s Center listening to an amazing woman tell her coming of age stories, or to stand by the ocean with a group of people huddling close to stay warm, and hearing stories of sea turtles and polar bears, or to tour through the Mission with a man that is himself one of its wonderful stories, and to stand there while neighbors come to their windows to listen to the song being played just for us, just for the night. You will have to join in next time! In Living Landscapes
The storytellers: Allison Davis: her coming of age stories; Wallace J. Nichols: sea turtle stories; Leah Lamb: polar bear story; Joe Lambert: stories of the Mission; Gary Rosenburg: the troubadour.
Here’s my tribute to the storytellers, the troubadour, and to everyone on the bus, with a special shout out to Leah Lamb, who made it all happen:
We walked in the dark by the edge of the sea, our path lit by tiny flashlights, up along the cliffs, skirting the edges: one stray step and we would have floated along on the air that hugs the cliffs and kept going. We were humbled by the night, by the clear presence of love, by the stories calling out to us on our way to hear more stories. The ocean thundered, rumbled, clapped its hands, and we counted our steps with prayer beads, keeping time with the surf. We had emerged from the bus, you see, where people whispered into the microphone where they’d come from, who they’d been, and we’d sipped tequila and toasted sea turtles and our love for the world with champagne. Later, in the pictures, you could see the color wrapping around us, bubbling up from us, doing what color does.
All photos courtesy of People and the Planet and In Living Landscapes.
