I am not proud of it, but last summer, just before we moved out of California, I stuck my head out the window and screamed, “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuccckk youuuuuu San Francisco!!”. And then I noticed that my younger daughter had been videotaping, as we drove down the Embarcadero, capturing my outburst forever. One day, that will be very funny to both of us. I hope.
I couldn’t help but think about this iconic moment as we started packing for our two week summer “old home tour”, which I had planned to fulfill my daughter’s wish to see her CA friends and return to her favorite summer camp in the East Bay. Even before we departed, I had started to experience an eye infection, oddly in the same eye and with the same symptoms as I had two months before, at the tail end of a visit from my parents.
San Francisco, my birthplace and home of multiple decades, once calming my soul with the sight of golden, dry hills and black scraggly oaks, had yanked my heart out of my chest, Temple of Doom style Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (5/10) Movie CLIP - Ritual Heart Removal (1984) HD in an unexpected, startling series of events that opened my eyes, irreversibly.
We decided to stay overnight in San Francisco, Saturday night, at the start of our trip. That Sunday morning, as my hubs and daughters slept, I went out for a walk around my old city.
I hadn’t lived in the city ittself for a while, but I worked there for over twenty years. From a first job collating papers on Montgomery Street to years in offices downtown and south of Market: lunch spots and coffee spots and hidden roofdecks, some were there, unchanged, but most were not. Growing up, before I lived or worked in the city, I would come in for special occasions; Christmas Nutcracker outings (of lost retainer lore, apparently it was thrown away after I had wrapped it in a napkin while eating, and we dug it out of an industrial-size garbage can), after work family dinner meetups at Tadiches, lunch with my dad in old school haunts with one syllable male names: Sam’s, Jack’s.. as a brace-faced, awkward teenager wearing my best dress, trying to fit in. Even before that, our family pediatrician was in SF, necessitating an annual outing which seemed to take all day, as there were four of us with back to back appointments, plus traffic getting through the Caldecott tunnel, home to the East Bay. I am told that as a baby, when we lived in SF, I crawled around with a washcloth on my head (why, who knows?) and enjoyed eating Cheerios with my mom at Baker beach. In fourth grade, we took a school bus field trip to Fort Point, and the smell of the bus made me vomit - fortunately after I got out.
Then there was the era of post-college city living: the stint in Pac Heights, green-carpeted apartment on the Panhandle, and tiny, ornate one bedroom with a slice of water view in the Marina. We had our engagement party there.. I bought my wedding dress on Maiden Lane.. celebrated weekends at fun and divey bars (Holy Cow! Covered Wagon, Comet Club, the Horseshoe..) group-friendly restaurants for birthday dinners (La Barca! and others). There were some best forgotten attempts at karoke (tip: avoid Little Red Corvette). And much more. In the end, I had spent all but six of my now fifty years in and around San Francisco.
So naturally, I felt like I belonged.
I think with belonging there is an underlying, innate expectation of safety: this is MY town, these are MY people, this is MY family, I am good here.
But then I wasn’t. There was this the smoldering rage of the unvaccinated - part 1 and this Diversity, equity and exclusion and this the smoldering rage of the unvaccinated - part 2 and this the smoldering rage of the unvaccinated - part 3 and this, Tiptoeing slowly away from hell all against the backdrop of this Hidden options in health care - Part 5. Plus a covid-timed family conflict that amounted to false accusations against someone dear to me, which were later proven wrong (in November 2022), but led me through a period of questioning whether I would and should retain a relationship with my parents and brothers - or would enter the second chapter of life as a person without relatives or family history.
So, there was a lot on my mind as I explored the city that Sunday morning.
Having been "shown the door" because of my choice not to be injected with the poison in Rhode Island, I totally get what you're feeling. I've decided to let go of the string though. I let it go for myself, my wife, my grown kids, my new patients and friends here in the Free State of NH, and for my mental and physical well being. I have not forgotten the way that I was treated like a criminal, I've just decided to let it go. Maybe this story I wrote a few months back will help you...
I heard an enlightening story about a man that was productive and well respected in his town. This man was walking through the marketplace and saw a string on the ground. He stopped to pick it up thinking to himself that he could repurpose that string to do something useful. At just that moment, someone noticed that their wallet was missing and saw the man bending to pick something up and put it in his pocket. The person that lost his wallet confronted the man and told him that he saw the man pick his wallet up and put it in his pocket. The man quickly pulled the string out of his pocket and said that he didn’t find a wallet, he just found a piece of string and put it in his pocket but the person didn’t believe him and called him a thief. In fact, that person became very vocal about it and told everyone in the town that the man had stolen his wallet and wouldn’t give it back. Most of the people in town believed the person who lost their wallet and began to treat the man like a thief.
At this point, the man was at a crossroads. He had only two choices to decide between. Either he could ignore the people who falsely accused him and continue to work and do good things in his community OR defend himself and carry a grudge against the person who wronged him and lied about him.
He just couldn’t allow his ego and reputation to be tarnished because of a false accusation so he went to every person that would listen and took the string out of his pocket telling his side of the story explaining that it wasn’t a wallet that he picked up. “It was a string, it was just a piece of string” he would exclaim. This went on for months and then years and then decades long after each person in town had decided to believe him or not. But years later he was still talking about his innocence and that piece of string. Many people couldn’t even remember the incident but he carried that string everywhere he went repeating his story until everyone thought him a fool and just tried their best to avoid him and his story.
One day, when the man was alone and very old on his deathbed, his last words were said to be, “It was a string. It was just a piece of string.”
That story woke me up.
I realized that the time to hold a grudge against the government that made it impossible for me to practice my profession without proof of the biological agent in my arm, against the people who were vocal about me not wanting to take their shot and called me a ‘grandma killer’ for not taking it, against the people who would not let me into the supermarket in Rhode Island to get groceries without wearing that scientifically useless mask, and on and on and on… NEEDED to be OVER. That story was my PIECE OF STRING and nobody wants to hear about it, nobody needs to hear about it and it won’t change anybody’s opinion as to whether or not I was wrong or wrongly judged.
What happened to me in the past isn’t important. Whether it was having my home destroyed in a tornado or fighting Blue Cross in Federal Court or nearly being disabled by a torn disc or losing my practice because of a plandemic isn’t important. They’re all PIECES of STRING and I need to let them go.
I have nothing to prove anymore and my only focus should be on the present. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Going forward, I’m not going to try to defend myself and I am certainly not going to carry a piece of string. I’d much rather continue to serve God by serving His Children through Chiropractic and by being a good husband, father, friend, author and mentor.
What Piece of String are you carrying around? What grudge are you holding? How are they holding YOU back? What will you do about that? I hope you make the right decision.
In Health and Faith,
Dr. Jay Korsen
What state did you move to? We moved from Marin 2017 just as TDS was taking hold.
I am grateful I wasn't in the bay area during COVID. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. Everyone I know there bought into it hook, line, and sinker.