He was in my yoga class.  I didn’t notice him at first, except that he was obviously an advanced student capable of Ashtanga’s advanced 3rd series.  What I did notice was that as he was leaving, he mentioned to the teacher that he was simply visiting San Francisco for a conference.  I took it upon myself to show to this man that San Francisco is one of the most absolutely wonderful places to be.

I approached him as he was dressing himself for the outside chilled weather.  I asked him if he wanted to get a smoothie from one of the eccentric mom and pop corner shops that abound in the Mission District.  So we walked the 2 blocks to the Sidewalk Juice window, and bought some trendy kombutcha and an almond smoothie for me.

We walked the two blocks in sunny 55 degree weather, light filtering thru trees and dancing onto the victorian-houses-of-varying-degrees-of-deterioration.  We talked about climate change (apparently he was a scientist and a professor at Princeton), about the directions our lives had taken, about traveling outside of the US and outside of our comfort zones.

We stopped outside the yoga studio where we met.  ”We should be Facebook friends,” he offered tentatively.  ”Maybe…” I agreed.  Will we keep in touch?  Maybe, maybe not.  But as he disappeared into the crowd descending down the escalators into the 24th/Mission BART station, I couldn’t help feeling a mixture of sadness and elation, knowing that good people are out there and that they exist.