SF is part of my karass
A karass in the religion of Bokononism (from Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle) refers to a club of people tangled up together in the universe. A karass crosses national, institutional, occupational, familial, and class boundaries.
By the third or fourth time I cross somebody's path, I start to wonder if they're part of my karass.
It's not as obvious as it sounds to know if somebody is in your karass. They could be part of a granfalloon (a fake karass) - merely a fan of the same sports team or member of the same political party or alumni group.
But San Francisco I believe is part of my karass.
I've had my suspicions for a while. I was having coffee Saturday morning at the Blue Bottle across from the Chipotle on Sutter and Kearny - the same Chipotle I ate at when I was visiting SF for the first time after college, poor and crashing with a friend on Russian Hill - and thinking about the cosmic tug this city has had on me.
Nearly every year for a decade I've come back to SF for one reason or another. We even moved here in 2019. But I dismissed SF as part of our granfalloon after the pandemic hit and we escaped in a Subaru, leaving our tiny 1 bedroom apartment behind.
Yet sure enough I came back.
I came back for a few investor meetings. Then I came back to meet a client. Which led to one thing, and then another, and then a new journey. A journey which has landed me inside an office building in the Presidio.
So now we are moving back. Hopefully for longer than 10 months this time.
But as I've been walking along the ridge of Pac Heights these past few weeks, looking out into the water, I can't shake the feeling that there is some universal purpose that keeps pulling me back to this city.
It is part of my karass.