I have learned that San Francisco is home to many wonders, strange, bizarre and unexpected.
When the air turns cold and the light fades, the city turns from a bustling metropolis into a fantastical dreamland.
As the wind finds a way into the tightest wrapped scarves and the rain snuggles deeper into the crevasses of your jacket the callers of the spirits emerge. Waving banners calling those of the underworld and chanting incantations to awake those who should remain sleeping, the seemingly innocent faces of the callers mask the true nature of their cries.
The callers take the form of youthful innocence and unabridged happiness as to lure those who do not know.
The light linger and dims, what was clear becomes faded. No longer does the world operate in reality, the things that live in dreams come out to play.
Streaks of color take over the landscape and you ask yourself again if that was real or your tired old eyes playing tricks on someone who wants too badly to believe in magic again.
Fear is not an emotion often described in terms of pleasure, and yet one can operate in the space of fear and exuberance. In wonder and awfulness.
As soon as it arrives it is gone again in a flash of curiosity and color.
And the parade continues as the spirits walk the streets.
More fantastical, more illusionary, more playful.
Should we follow then into the depths? Can we live in the dream world too? Let us adventure into the land of the spirits to regain our belief and imagination. No longer a life of offices, cubicles, cars and commutes, but one of lights and fog and drifting images that never take one shape.
Come with me and be my friend, I can show you everything.
No my little dream friend, my boyfriend is cold and I think there is beer at home.
Gong Hoy Fat Choy everyone, may the spirits haunt only your dreams.
