I recently found myself with too much time on my hands. I felt spoiled with all this time, even after asking for a much needed break. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I thought about what I really wanted and what would make me feel good. It was as simple as wanting to enjoy the perfect weather and a stroll in the park. The beauty of San Francisco is that you can start a walk nestled in the trees and end it being kissed by ocean mist.

I started at one end of the park and just kept walking (not without taking a detour to pick up lunch from Tartine, Inner Sunset). I took a stroll around one lake before walking to the next and watching some Mallards take a nap together.

I saw the bison for the first time. They’ve had a home in the city since 1891. I wondered if these bison had names. They looked surprisingly small at a distance.

My journey continued to Ocean Beach. I made a mental note to stop by the tulip garden when they’re in bloom.

I hadn’t been to the beach in months. I felt a giddiness swell within me and stomped my way over the sand to the shore. After a walk down the shore and back, I found a plank of wood to sit upon. I don’t take kindly to the thought of damp jeans and sandy pockets. I sat on my new chair waiting for the sun to set.

It felt like I had done nothing and everything in a day. From tree to driftwood. Grass to sand. Ducks to pipers. I watched a seagull peck a crab to submission and nibble at its innards. I was hungry. I picked off pieces of oats and nuts from my banana walnut muffin. I journaled some. I read some. The opening line to the preface of Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass is something else when you’re sitting at the beach, around fifteen thousand steps into the day before 3:00pm.

“Hold out your hands and let me lay upon them a sheaf of freshly picked sweetgrass, loose and flowing, like newly washed hair.”

When the sun made its way down, I grew cold. I watched an older couple kick sea foam together. Tufts of bubbles rolled with the wind and were dragged back into the sea by the pull of the tide. I walked to my bus stop and headed home for dinner.