The only good thing left in San Francisco is the “Acts of Care” exhibition at Ruth’s Table.
A photograph: a hand. A photograph: a bare back. Some photographs: hair being touched, hair being cut, hair being brushed, hair being treasured.
Care. This city is spoken about as one that is empty: empty structures and shops, a populace drained of home and honor and hope. Losses, departures, leavings, spirals of exodus. And so, in this most common chronicling of this foggy little port town: what is left?
I will spare you my story but I no longer exist in contexts which bear photos like those seen in “Acts of Care.” It is okay to cede places and people to the past, and a transient life can be a good one, but it does not lend itself to intimacy.
The first time I rode a bus in San Francisco, the man seated next to me did two cans of whippets then cast his body across mine. As I attempted to slide away, he put up a hand to grab a railing, blocking my easiest exit.
People touch each other in the city. People do not touch each other in the country. I have lived in the country for almost five years now. This is some of the context that I aimed to spare you.
A photograph: two people are dancing at an accordion festival, the setting declared not by instruments but by a wristband on the arm of a man whose face cannot be seen.
Compassion begets care begets communion begets that thing we all say we crave: community. In community: solidarity. From community: the promise of justice.
I give early-season Braeburns and a bouquet of lesser-known basil varietals to a poet who reads at the opening exhibition. Later that evening, a text message in unexpected response:
Love is a creative act and this is an exhibition of love.
Last year, I went to Pride and was generously offered an array of drugs that I declined. I returned to my shifty hotel, drunk only on alcohol and people, and slept in the inadvertently collected sweat of strangers.
In San Francisco, I am seduced, endlessly, by scenes of intimacy. Sagging jeans are an intimacy. An exhortation to act from grafittied scrawl is an intimacy. The final slot on an open mic sign-up sheet is an intimacy. A ceremony of scent and smoke before a meandering poetry festival, directions to a bar filled with t-boys and t-girls, a dollar passed to a bucket drummer, men and their immeasurable words of want, LaRussell cackling from a double-parked lowrider, women mounting each other in a photobooth, getting your nails did, al fresco cocks, corner store flirtations, corner chops, corner-bought huaraches shared under a waxing moon, intimacy, intimacy, intimacy, intimacy.
An artist shows us a short film: a world in which all touch is gentle, all people are colored, all spaces are safe, all moments are caring. Later, that artist reads us a poem, and a cellist submerged in real-time composition improvises language behind language.
I tell an accented man (San Francisco, blessed port city that it is, is full of accented people) that I loved the hushed light in his photo of a post-meal assemblage of somebodies around a table of spent glasses and near-cleared plates. (Breaking bread: the ultimate intimacy.) I told him that his was my favorite photo in the exhibition, which was true, because they were all my favorite photo in the exhibition.
I see a couple from the film shown during the evening’s performances. I tear up as I tell them, as I thank them, those strangers, for the glimpse at Black love. I thank the curator, a stranger, for shepherding this art to people. I speak to one of the artists about her décolletage, though my language was far more profane and forward and street than that euphemistic vernacular. I walk to Mission-Bartlett garage, dodging strangers, accidentally brushing up against one or two, and drive home along the ocean in the dark, where the next day I will touch soil and shrub and almost certainly no skin other than my own.
There are an infinite number of good things left in San Francisco. One of the deeply good things in San Francisco is the “Acts of Care” exhibition at Ruth’s Table.
“Acts of Care” is “an exhibition presented by Counter Collective and Ruth’s Table that examines the practices of care that foster environments in which justice, change, and growth can blossom.” The exhibition is curated by Claire Puginier and can be seen August 16 – October 4, 2024 at Ruth’s Table in the Mission. The opening exhibition was held on August 16 and featured spoken word artists Ashante J. Ford, Giovanna Lomanto, Camille Considine, and musician Roziht Eve.
Mukethe Kawinzi lives and works on a ranch in Pescadero, California.