Room With A View

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot

I have been trying to make sense of the persistent feelings of doubt and hesitation that have settled over me. I think it has something to do with the view. Literally.

The place where we are staying is downtown, a block off Market St and so near any number of places where I have worked over the years. I can look out of the living room window and see Charles Schwab, where I temped for ages after returning from Africa, and met my friends Jeremy and Maureen. Or Citibank, where I got my start in corporate training. Right below is The Palace Hotel where I used to go after work for Asian Martinis (sake instead of gin, ginger instead of an olive, divine!) Around the corner is the W Hotel, which in the Dot Com heyday was a hip watering hole.

Now it feels like a ghost town. Partly because, like all cities, the hip spots change and get defined by a new generation of people. Partly because I am in a job search and I have the edifices of old employers staring at me. And, with the economy in the dumps, the restaurants and bars are not stuffed to capacity. The Dolce Vita crowd are something of a palimpsest.