San Francisco

I began to see their faces today..  for the first time, not a blur anymore, but individual chins and eye brows, nose rings and downward gazes.     I began to tell them apart, for the first time to understand that behind each face lies infinity.   A mind, a dream, a tangle, a restlessness, a hope,   
I discovered that humanity is not one place or just an idea that we speak about eloquently..  it is the single voice of a San Francisco Mozart playing for passersby on Height Ashbury.  and the crescendo of his mandolin as he desperately looks into my eyes.  Change. Please.  
  Humanity is the Mexican mother pushing her child through Dolores Park in a broken stroller..   Humanity is the hands of gay men squeezed tightly in exclamation of their intention.   It is the captain in fisherman's wharf,  the steel in his handshake and the creases along his eyes from staring into the ocean's reflections.     I see them..   The young and the tattered, the peaceful and the misguided, the lovers hitching rides in each other's tattooed shoulders,  the first-time brave-ones, the culprits and the aspiring revolutionaries.    I see the tourists, the naturists, the poets writing their lives away in the meadows of Golden Gate Park.   Each one. Humanity.    
 Humanity is the song of a small, tousled-haired girl, whose eyes and passing smile break my heart and remind me of someone I adore in Maui. 
 Maybe to become purpose, you first have to see what you are fighting for.   Who are you fighting for.    These are my faces, these are the looks on my own face.   This is my humanity,  this is me. 
I see you.  You are me.  Humanity.   We are each other now. 




Andrew Tipton