A Farewell to San Francisco and Lessons from the Retirement Honeymoon

My Status R journey has gone on for nearly ten months.

Experts call this first stage of retirement the honeymoon phase, which can be anywhere from six months to two years. With Thanksgiving around the corner, it's an apt time to express how grateful I am for enjoying it as such.

My retirement honeymoon has been a classic affair: travel, beach, late-night Netflix. There's been productive stuff too, including a house project I'm so proud of I believe it deserves a feature in Good Housekeeping. I've socialized with friends, same as I did before retirement, but more rested and therefore more creatively. (Line dancing, anyone?) And what would life be worth without some healthy amount of napping and idle contemplation? That's when big plans are born.

That reminds me, I also continue to labor on a novel, whose working title is Worst Novel Ever Why Don't You Just Give It Up.

As I reflect on this honeymoon phase, I realize I have developed an infatuation with one of my travel destinations: San Francisco. Sadly, my regular encounters with this city, where my daughter was living, have come to an end.

That's because my daughter's long-held wish to relocate to New York finally came true in October. After four years in San Francisco, her employer assigned her to a new position that allows her to work from anywhere. Her desire for a full-throttle urban lifestyle has led her to Manhattan. Since early grade school, she has imagined herself living there one day.

I am grateful for this change in her life because she wanted it so badly, and because she is now closer to Miami. And it goes without saying I am beyond thankful for being her mother.

But her move means that my twice-a-year trips to San Francisco to see her have come to an end. To my surprise, I'm feeling quite nostalgic about this.

San Francisco grew on me like a second home city, but without the taxes.

In case you've never been to San Francisco, here are some of the highlights that were a part of my life:

• Adobe, creator of PDF and Photoshop, is based there. It gave my daughter the best entry to corporate America that a college grad could hope for.

• The Marina neighborhood, a perfect mix of waterfront, green space, buzzing commercial main street and low-rise apartment buildings with flower-laced gardens, all within walking distance. Rents there were a steal during the city's Covid shutdown, which was great timing for my daughter's apartment hunt.

• The cheery Comfort Inn by the Bay, my home away from home, has large quiet rooms and a breakfast room that features floor-to-ceiling windows. (Not iconic, but I highly recommend this hotel. My bar for luxury accommodations is low, but it includes clean, quiet, bright and free coffee.)

• Union Street, where you can connect with every new trend, like the world comes to meet you there. It's where I booked my first Stretch Lab session. (A trained person stretches you every which way as you lie down; when you get up, you are as limber as chewing gum.)

• The Golden Gate Bridge, made for cars, but somehow to human scale. I loved walking it, feeling myself to be part of a stupendous link between two lands separated by a natural rift.

• The city's steep-slope streets lined with colorful facades, the public staircases to be able to climb some of those streets, and the stunning views of San Francisco Bay when you get to the top.

• The way the ocean settles into this bay and the way the city embraces it; they blend into each other.

• The numerous places across the bay you can reach by ferry, such as Sausalito, Tiburon and Angel Island.

Besides its iconic bridge, quirky neighborhoods, and breathtaking views, this city on the other side of the country from where I live provided connections that made the world smaller and larger at the same time.

My godmother lives near San Francisco, and she's quite the character. I got to know her better, soaking up her kindness while she shared her experiences of Cuba and exile, which were very different from mine.

My late mother might have turned in her grave, however, when I asked her how she felt about the intended role of a godmother, which is spiritual guidance. I chuckled when I learned that my godmother is more of a non-believer.

That's okay, lightning didn't strike. She has been a reliable and generous anchor in San Francisco, which has made this worldly realm better. In reverse role form, I encouraged her to peek into faith now and then. She encouraged me to date more, to find a partner for my old age. That's faith, in its own way.

Extensions of my life while in San Francisco included blasts from the past, bringing them to my present.

A highlight of each visit was hanging out with Rina, a high school friend who is bright and warm and fun, and who always made time for me every visit. She and her equally charming husband led us biking on Golden Gate Park and took us for tapas by the waterfront. Rina took me to the latest museum exhibit, where we unleashed our inner art critics glancing at paintings of the Tudors. We talked for hours over a glass of wine on my last visit.

Rina wasn't the only long-lost friend roaming around San Francisco. On one visit when my daughter and I decided to make a day trip to Carmel, I ran into Tico, a friend since seventh grade whom I hadn't seen since before we were of drinking age.

There he was, also on a day trip to Carmel, leisurely strolling with his wife, and soon wondering who the lady waving and yelling out his name was! Serendipity arranged what several attempts to meet up couldn't. We had a catch-up chat in the middle of Carmel. His wife has retired, he's thinking about it, but not yet. (I think it's harder for men, but that will be another post.)

And there's Amy, a college acquaintance whom I used to run into only at reunions every five or ten years, but who is now officially a friend. We caught up over dinner during my last visit, since, it turns out, she's a San Francisco local. I look forward to her visit to Miami next year.

One of my last experiences in San Francisco provided a unique connection with my Hispanic Catholic roots.

While visiting the national shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi, the city's patron saint, a woman tapped me to offer information about a march the next morning, organized by the church to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’. This was the late Pope Francis's first encyclical, inviting the world to take care of our planet, our "common home."

The demonstration started at 9 am from a church located across town from my hotel. With energy to spare from all that retirement rest, I decided to join. Along with about 100 other people, I walked four miles throughout the city, holding signs and posters calling for environmental TLC.

The trek wrapped up with a cappuccino stop accompanied by two new friends I met during the walk—one from Singapore and the other from Venezuela. It was uplifting to connect with two San Franciscans originating from distant places, united by faith, a shared interest in the environment, and a shared appreciation for caffeine. That morning, I felt like a San Franciscan myself.

To be sure, an environmental march in San Francisco wasn't surprising, given that environmental concerns are common in liberal politics.

But the march being sponsored by what seemed to be very pious Catholics did surprise me. Then again, Pope Francis was all green; of course, it would be a San Francisco church that would take it to heart.

Incidentally, I saw some impressive historic Catholic churches in San Francisco besides the Shrine, as it is hard not to, whichever way you meander throughout the city.

San Francisco's oldest intact structure is a small adobe chapel from 1791 in what was Mision Dolores, one of forty-some missionary installations the Spanish built throughout California. The stately Mission Dolores Basilica, hard not to stare at for the intricate features of its facade, was built next to the small chapel in 1918. It is located between the Castro and Mission District. Hard to miss, if you go to either.

Saint Ignatius Parish, where the demonstration started, is a splendid 1912 structure on the campus of the University of San Francisco, a Jesuit university one block northeast from Golden Gate Park.

Saint Dominic's Catholic Church, dating back to 1873, occupies a four-block area within walking distance from a central Goodwill store.

Saints Peter and Paul Church overlooks Washington Square Park, both places offering a respite from the commercial bustle of the North Beach neighborhood.

Closer to where my daughter lived is Saint Vincent de Paul Parish, built in 1902 in the tranquil Cow Hollow neighborhood.

Discovering the numerous churches scattered throughout the places I frequented prompted me to read more about San Francisco's early history as a territory of Spain. The Spanish crown imposed its Catholic religion in the territory, same as it did in Cuba, where I was born, and in Puerto Rico, where I grew up.

It felt validating to my naturalized U.S. citizen self to be in a major U.S. city whose origins are the same as where I come from.

Alas, with the last of my daughter's boxes packed and shipped, my long part-time honeymoon with San Francisco came to an end. I will miss having this unique city play an integral role in my life. However, these past ten honeymoon months, including the farewell to SF, left me some valuable pointers for retirement, wherever it might lead next:

• Take time to rest. It's essential and you accomplish more afterward.

• Reflect on your life, on your roots. You are unique and not unique at the same time. Sorting that out makes life interesting.

• Reach out to old friends if the opportunity presents itself. The shared history encases a treasure of fun and insight.

• Reach out to make new friends. At heart, the world is a small village.

• Keep the retirement honeymoon going for as long as you want.

To be sure, mine isn't over, and neither is my love affair with San Francisco.

I have yet to visit Yosemite National Park. And I am still as in love with the freedom and flexibility of retirement as I was the first day.

So this November, I am grateful for these two honeymoons and the chapters that will follow.

And I am grateful for this blog, which I had planned to write for the first six months of retirement. But that time has gone by too fast, and I'm not ready to give up my personal online platform.

Therefore, I am now declaring this blog to be about the first twelve months of retirement. I might as well make use of my full-year subscription to Wix.com, the blog's host platform.

More importantly, I wish to maintain the connection with random, unseen, or unexpected readers seeking online content that resonates. To those other ships passing in the night, I'm glad you're out there.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

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