a day in san francisco

First impressions: Lanky, Tatoo sleeves, black mohawk, generous smile. Second impressions: kind conversant and intelligent. He was leading a walking tour and on the way to its start he led off asking me some general questions about where i was from. As I began to return his niceties with my own queries I uncovered a third layer of information which rather outstripped my stories in stark interest.

Anton had grown up with a Greek (and Greek Orthodox) Mother who had migrated from Quebec, and with a father, who I took to be Italian, (and Roman Catholic). He was raised in San Francisco's Little Italy- a stone throw from Chinatown. Thus he had political dual citizenship, religious dual schismship -if you will- and was obviously rather keen to the way cultural diversity effects us.

When I told him where I called home he flattered it. Said that if he were to live in another city on basis of its own merits, that mine would top his list. This, of course, made me wonder what he had to compare it to.
A lot, it would seem.

Having received his masters of divinity from a Roman Catholic institution in New Orleans, Anton became a monk in a monastery in Athos for what he said was "many years" - though this confused me, because he didn't look so much older than me. In time he decided to study eastern traditions by living at their monasteries, and as an ambassador on behalf of his tradition. Now he was a lay monk, living back in his home city of San Francisco- a place I wonder if he'd ever left in spirit.
He was my tour guide through his old backyard of Chinatown, and as he took our tour group into, first a Buddhist, and then a Taoist place of observance. He revealed that his immersion to an understanding of these traditions dated to his childhood in that corner of town. He would never leave San Francisco for my city on basis of its own merit, not while this was his home- I could tell that. Anton personified what I liked best about his city.

That night he called out Spanish names in a Día de Muertos themed game of bingo in the pub next to the hostel. And as he did I heard him laugh to his friend, the bartender, how there was something absurd about someone, with his Mdiv, repeating mispronounced Spanish phrases like a trained parrot for a handful of travelers in some tiny hole in this city's many walls.
"And yet," he came back, continuing his aside a few minutes later.
"And yet this is actually one of my favorite things to do".

I wish I knew more of Anton's story. Wish i could pick his brain for hours. But maybe a city itself is no more eager to render those answers to a passer-through than any of its faithful sons.

Yes, you may see the genuine smiles on my plethora of faces, but you may not know why I smile.

To be true to one's own joy in the mosaic of a community, is this your lesson for me? Or is it that it's ok to go home if that is what feeds you, for perhaps that is what defines the beauty- even the simplest and the smallest of joys.