My Tower:

I once lived in a valley miles away from civilization. My consolations were books, cards to build houses with, acres to hike on, and at the onset of teenagerdom video games. One of my favorite landmarks was an old limestone kiln. A limestone kiln is a structure of a type that was in antique times used to process quicklime. Ours was made of the local stone and looked something like a castle turret. It took most of the day to hike to, but any time I could persuade the locals to make the trek to our ranch I took them there, got them to go in even after the entrance had halfway caved in. I loved it even more than the hammock I made out of braided hay bale ropes, or the junkyard that I used like giant rusty legos. Unfortunately I have no pictures from this time in my life outside of my curly head.

My River:

And then I lived in a house- halfway on stilts, halfway off- that shook whenever the dryer ran. The house overlooks a river that flooded up to the bottom of the stairs most winters. I lived halfway up the stairs, the year after I left the water rose high enough to cover the bottom foot of my room in water. I used to sit out on our porch and watch things float by. Once there was a dock with a staircase still attached. We lost a kayak to that river. Then gained two more back, and a surfboard. I remember having a rope tied around my waste so I could paddle out rapidly to an island that had one of our boats stranded on it. And chasing after an oversized flotation device that looked like a gigantic purple and yellow donut, finally catching it after cutting my ankle an the window of a sunken car. I remember pulling myself and a kayak back along the shore for an hour by various weeds because the current was too strong to row against. My blood is in that river and that river is in my blood.

My Park:

Now I have returned to my native San Francisco. I live in a part I never knew existed before, the outer sunset. A part of the city so safe that you can leave a working TV on the curb for a month and it will not be taken or destroyed (except possibly by the dew). I live next to a dog park. After midnight it is mine, the whole length of it. Many is the time I've jogged in the moonlight, the conversation I've had as I jumped from bench to bench. In a section of my mind it is the courtyard of my castle.