Chasing to the Cut

Courtyard 730 Stanyan, San Francisco, a new affordable housing development with 160 units to house low to moderate-income families as well as families and transitional age youth (TAY) who have experienced homelessness. Photo by author, March 1, 2026.

I chase to the cut, instead of cutting to the chase. The brand new past arrives with clean windows and high hopes for the future!

But once I got here, up 7 stories, I found the sky wandering around all by itself, seeing the sky as not blue but actually composed of the colors green and yellow.

I was surprised too, as anyone of us might have possibly been surprised that morning, looking critically at this new high-rise up on Stanyan, and to learn from the literature about the building that god turned out to be a nice guy after all.

Nothing’s as awful as I once thought it was; every single thing, no matter how small and inconsequential it might seem to be, has real meaning. I also sensed how both Nothing and Something really work; that they can work together over time.

Meantime, I gotten very little done in the real world. And that sometimes feeling just a tiny bit sorry for myself actually feels pretty good.