Wordswalk

We walked most of the day through the streets of San Francisco and sometimes we walked on words. This morning in Jack Kerouac Alley next to City Lights Books a student read us poetry by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and this evening another student translated the characters written on the gateway to Chinatown and read from Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men.

In between we walked and walked: to Fisherman's Wharf to see the sea lions and the view across the bay, to eat fish and chips and bacon fudge and turn up our collars against the wind. Then we were off again, up to Coit Tower and down Lombard Street and then up again to Chinatown, where my students introduced a classmate to the joys of chopsticks and enjoyed an amazing meal.

Tonight my ankles and feet are complaining and my face feels tight from windburn, and I have a feeling I'll start the day tomorrow stiff and sore. But it makes me happy to recall how excited my students were to browse among the books at City Lights and then tramp around a city where words are underfoot everywhere we look.