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Summer 2015 - Stop 19
San Francisco is a very charming city. They try to fit in all they can in the time they have. The hills (“These hills would give anyone an amazing ass!” “Honey, you already have an amazing one.”), the cable cars (“Are they sure that the brakes work properly?”), the Painted Ladies (“Someone really knows how to use a color wheel.”), Chinatown (“Kurt, look at all the dumplings!”), Coit Tower (“Did you know that Lillian Hitchcock Coit had a thing for firefighters?” “Hmm, I wouldn’t have guessed that by the looks of it.”) all of it bracketed by two very different looking bridges (“Why would they call it the Golden Gate Bridge if it’s red?” “If the other bridge is red then they should’ve gone ahead and painted this one a complementary color.“)
They can’t help but break out into little snippets of songs, phrases from ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’, ‘San Francisco, Open Your Golden Gate’, to ‘The Trolley Song’. (“That’s not about San Francisco,” remarked Kurt. “It’s a song about a trolley, it’s close enough,” mused Blaine.)
As they explored more of it, they saw that it wasn’t a very big city. Bordered on three sides by water, there was only so much it could spread out. But they found at the end of the day that it was a good thing that it didn’t sprawl much further than its 49 square miles because they were exhausted.
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As they exited the 5 Fulton Muni bus, Blaine waved good-bye enthusiastically to an elderly lady on board. “Thank you so much for helping us find our way, Mrs. Wong! Have a good day!” The elderly lady smiled and nodded at them before the bus pulled away from the stop.
“She was so helpful!” Blaine gushed.
“I wish the bus driver was as helpful.” Kurt grumbled while reaching into his bag for his sunglasses.
“The sign did say to refrain from talking to the bus operator.”
“I only wanted to know if the bus was going in the right direction! I wasn’t going to engage in a dialog on the current state of world affairs.”
“Good thing that Mrs. Wong was there then.”
“Well, it’s a really good thing that strangers are always drawn to talking to you, then.” From the very beginning, Kurt noticed that wherever they went, Blaine would inevitably have random strangers talk to him. In elevators, at the mall, in line at the cashier. Anywhere. The strangers and Blaine would become fast friends for the few minutes they were in each other’s presence before parting their separate ways. Kurt found it exasperating and endearing at the same time.
“Hey, it can’t be all that bad as that special talent got you to talk to me,” smiled Blaine.
“Yes, it did,” conceded Kurt. “And there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t consider myself lucky that I stopped you then.” Crooking his arm and offering it to Blaine with a flourish, “Shall we?”
“Yes, we shall.” Happily looping his arm through Kurt’s, they crossed the street and into Golden Gate Park. The 6th Avenue entrance led them to a meandering road.
The road was closed to vehicles on Sundays, so there were many people out taking advantage of the carless roads. Every form of human powered transport could be seen; bicycles, tricycles, an occasional unicycle, trams, roller-bladers and even roller skaters, the latter rolled by with a boom box blasting disco.
Hearing a screech, Blaine looked up and pointed, “Oh. Look, it’s a hawk.”
Kurt spotted a bird lazily circling around above the tall trees. A moment later, it was joined by another one. They drifted on the updraft until a passing flock of pigeons drew them away. “Well, at least there’s plenty for them to eat.”
Strolling along they reached the fork in the road leading to museum row. Then they heard the upbeat jazz. Getting closer, they then saw the gaggle of people watching a group lined up practicing some steps being taught by a couple of instructors.
“Lindy in the Park,” Kurt read the banner stretched across a banister. “Free Outdoor Swing Dance Every Sunday from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., Free Beginner Lesson from 12 p.m. – 12:30 p.m.”
Blaine lit up and looked at Kurt. He was positively vibrating.
“Swing dancing?”
“C’mon, Kurt. They’re doing some basic steps right now. You can do this! We can do this!”
“Maybe you can,” said Kurt a bit unsure.
Blaine sent another beseeching look at Kurt.
“Oh god. Fine. Yes, let’s do this. Just stop looking at me like that!”
“Yay!”
One of the instructors was nearby and welcomed them in. Addressing the crowd, “Everybody is welcome to join! The only two things you need here is to want to have fun and to pick a side, any side, of either follower or leader. That’s it.”
Kurt picked the side of the followers as he knew that Blaine had more experience dancing swing.
The lessons were low key and simple to follow. After several steps they put it all together and practiced that with a partner. After each practice, they switched to a new partner. Then they would separate again to learn several more steps before stringing all that together to create a short dance sequence.
Kurt was mildly surprised at how well he was doing with steps. He wasn’t a slouch but picking up new choreography usually took him a bit of time. He was also delighted that his partners ranged so widely and were nonplussed about the fact they were partnered with him. Despite the fact that they were in San Francisco, fair amounts of the people dancing were tourists from all over.
The final steps of the choreography were shown and then the final few practices came. The last partner Kurt had, bowed deeply and then extended his hand, “May I have this dance?” Blaine asked.
“Yes. Yes, you may.”
Before the dance started up again, Blaine stepped in close to Kurt and murmured, “That never gets old, does it?”
Kurt sighed happily. He leaned back a little to look Blaine in the eye, “Never. I’ll never get tired of hearing you ask.” Kurt punctuated it with a sweet kiss.
They moved through the routine easily. It wasn’t perfect but dancing in the park on a beautiful day with other kindred spirits made it so.
“Okay folks, that’s the end of the lesson. Thanks for joining with us. We hope you enjoyed the lesson and stay for the free dancing until 2.”
The group dispersed and smaller pockets of dancers formed. The music started back up into a raucous 40’s big band sound. Several of the beginning dancers danced the routine they just learned alongside the more clearly advanced ones. They watched for a song and then it changed into a mid-tempo beat.
“One last dance?” asked Kurt, holding out his hand, while wiggling his fingers.
“Yes, let’s.” grinned Blaine.
Blaine guided Kurt through a fox trot and they can’t help but laugh at their attempts. They stop to catch their breath.
“Did you still want to go to the De Young museum?” Blaine asked.
Kurt looked at Blaine thoughtfully. “Was there something else you would like to do?”
“It’s just so nice out. Why don’t we take advantage of Karl the Fog’s absence and stay outdoors?”
“The fog has a name?”
“Karl has a twitter following of 94,000,” shrugged Blaine.
“Wow. Okay. That’s really random. What did you have in mind instead?”
“Let’s go to Stow Lake. They have paddle boats and row boats!”
“Paddle boats as in you paddle to get around in the water?”
“Yes!”
“No.”
“Row boats then. It’ll be fun. And romantic.”
“Do you even know how to row a boat?”
“Well, no but it looks simple enough. How hard can it be?”
“Famous last words.”
“Please?” Blaine pleaded.
“As if I was going to say no,” laughed Kurt. “Let’s go.”
Blaine checked his phone for the right directions to the lake. “We’re pretty close by.” They arrived to the boathouse a few moments later. After renting the boat and Kurt rejecting the life jackets, “They’re awful Blaine and I checked, this lake is only about 4 feet deep. I think we’ll be okay.” They were finally on the water.
Blaine rowed far enough for them to be away from the boathouse before he paused. It was still early enough that there weren’t many people out on the lake yet. He watched Kurt as he took in the surrounding beauty. When he noticed that Blaine had slowed down, “What?”
“Nothing. Everything.” Before Kurt could reply, Blaine leaned forward, cupped the side of Kurt’s face with one hand and kissed Kurt. Their kiss was interrupted by a small splash. Breaking apart, they looked around. “Oh no!”
The oar that Blaine wasn’t holding onto had slipped into the water and was slowly drifting away from them.
“Don’t move!” Kurt quickly said.
“But we have to get the oar.”
“Yes, but if you move too quickly you will tip us over. And as much as I don’t want us to be stuck, I really don’t want to find out what is in this water. I’m closer just hand me the other oar and I’ll use that to bring the other one back,” instructed Kurt.
Blaine carefully handed over the remaining oar to Kurt who then used it to guide back the escaped one. “Success!” exclaimed Kurt.
“My hero!”
“It’s just an oar, Blaine.” Kurt said while rolling his eyes.
“Yes, but for your quick thinking we didn’t suffer the indignity of falling into the water. So there you go, hero.” Blaine teased.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Damsel in Distress,” laughed Kurt. “Come on, let’s switch.” They managed to swap places in the boat with a minimum of rocking. “I’ll row. You obviously are too distracted to focus. The next thing we’ll know you’ll row us onto the ground and I don’t feel like stepping in mud to free us.”
“If I am distracted it’s only because the scenery is so gorgeous and I’m not talking about the trees or the ducks.” Blaine said, eyebrows waggling.
“You are so ridiculous.”
“And you love it!”
“And I love it.”
Kurt started rowing and they watched the scenery as they pulled past it. The stone bridges were a favorite and the Chinese Pavilion, while random, was beautiful. They added a very surreal quality to a very good day. Which, if this was any small indication of how their life was to be then so be it.