Nothing

The inner Outer Sunset isn't as lost as the outer Outer Sunset--but it's damn quiet; and I'd say Moraga Street from 19th Avenue on out to the ocean is one of the dullest streets in the City. Dull, and yet intriguing in its dullness. I found myself at Moraga and 28th Avenue today, parked just outside the Sunset Recreation Center--I'd launched myself out of the house, baby in tow of course, with no idea where I was going but with a somewhat urgent need to go anyway (my husband was making a crucial conference call and needed to know that the house would remain quiet for the next thirty minutes or so--and as soon as one desperately needs a baby to remain quiet for thirty minutes, it's almost guaranteed that he or she will not comply. Just one of the unspoken laws of baby-raising).

Nothing could be heard at all, not even a whisper on the breeze, as I got out of the car and loaded the little guy into his stroller. A. was fast asleep. I was already primed for an encounter with that elusive "lost" element of the city that I keep writing about. It did come; in fact, I felt time stop again; but unlike yesterday, the experience felt vaguely sinister. Maybe it was just that everything was so damn quiet.

I decided to head to the reservoir which occupies a plot of land two blocks in diameter, from Ortega to Quintara, and from 24th Avenue to 26th. It was a remarkably warm summer day, for the Outer Sunset--at around 65 degrees not exactly sweltering, but comfortable shirtsleeve weather. I pushed the stroller up a steep path that leads only to a tall fence, there only to block the entire reservoir (which is already cemented over) from public access. The path really leads nowhere, just up to the fence and back down again around the corner. I found this irritating. As I pushed the stroller up, I watched a young boy, 9 or 10 years old, jumping rope in a desultory fashion, near the top; he glanced sheepishly in my direction, as if to say, "Yeah, I'm doing this because I'm bored, please don't laugh at me."

Sometime around then I heard a melancholy voice in my head, repeating a simple phrase: "Nothing will ever happen to you."

I turned the corner and saw a man in a beige fisherman's sweater sitting on a bench; he gave me a stony stare as I passed. "Nothing will ever happen to you," the voice repeated. "Nothing." I wasn't taking the voice very seriously; even so, it made me nervous.

Of course I don't want to slip into the void without having accomplished something--without having lived my life to the fullest. But what if--what if all of it really does amount to nothing?

The pseudo-zen practitioner in me rejoiced at the thought of relinquishing all efforts towards something-ness. But at the same time, a small wave of fear passed through me. That reservoir, its blank surface covered with concrete, seemed to radiate nothingness, not the soul-satisfying emptiness of the meditative state.

I circled the entire reservoir as the baby slept. At Quintara and 24th Avenue I gazed with sadness at a bizarre playground, consisting of a very short plastic slide, a few swings, a pocket-sized sandbox and a tiny metal horse on a spring--all of it looking very bleak. The whole playground looked embarrassed at its own existence. It wasn't enclosed in anything. Usually a playground comes with some sort of demarcating border, but this one was just set up on the hard cement surface, with a few patches of rubber thrown down as some sort of minimal cushioning in case someone fell--no kid in his or her right mind would spend two minutes in that playground. A tiny girl with pigtails springing straight out from her head like insect antennae was attempting the slide, her parents standing on either side of her; I think they were just desperate for entertainment, or perhaps a bit insane.

That was when the "Nothing will ever happen to you" voice grew the loudest. "This is your life; walking past empty objects like this playground. Nothing will ever happen!" Nothing joyful about this particular experience of lost-ness. And yet...I realized the absurdity of the voice, of these gloomy thoughts. I was walking my baby. The weather was enticingly warm and sunny (a true rarity in the Sunset in August). All these people were just normal people getting through their lives somehow, not ghosts and insects.

Just the same--not planning to rush back to that reservoir any time soon. I headed back down the hill towards Moraga and 28th Ave--stopping first at a neighborhood cafe (run by a dignified looking man in his sixties and cheerful young people who always have a smile for their customers--not a common experience these days) for an espresso and croissant pick-me-up. The baby woke up and gazed at me with wondering brown eyes.