Playing

I've said yes a lot and lived many lives. This is my story.

Wilson asked if I danced. I dance. He wanted to know if I partner-danced and I told him that I didn’t. We were situated near our bikes on the ferry from Larkspur to San Francisco, which I took five days a week back then. I had a contract at a design firm in Larkspur and lived in a yellow rent-controlled Edwardian with a ginormous back yard in the Upper Haight in San Francisco where my favorite neighbors, the Marks, threw the best backyard parties complete with live music. Wilson’s line of questioning eventually revealed that he definitely and most absolutely was not picking up on me because he had a girlfriend in the Peace Corps but wanted to learn swing dancing with a partner and asked if I was interested. Sometimes you know the Universe nudges you to a fork in the road and if you choose the correct direction it will change your life forever.

I said yes and knew right then everything would change. I believe this was 1995. He and I no longer live near each other but we’re still friends. Here’s what happened: my then-boyfriend of three years lived with me, mostly for free. He ate for free, too. He kind of did everything for free. He was a free spirit, you could say. Our union was a yes that never had legs. He was originally the drummer in my band but most importantly, he was someone who believed his craft was of utmost importance and refused to work full-time to help pay his share of living expenses. He had band practice almost every night and was only home briefly for dinner before vanishing again. I announced that swing dancing had piqued my interest and couldn’t wait to try it out. This didn’t land the way I expected. I was fascinated by his reaction. I had never seen him like this before, but of course, I had never given myself permission to do anything that fell under the me umbrella as opposed to the us. It turned out that when I decided to do something wild and new—like swing dancing!—he got very jealous. Very. I wasn’t taking anything away from him, he was never home. I deliberated extensively the pros and cons of my situation. I’d invested so much in our relationship already, was I really willing to walk away just like that? I paid his way to Kauai to attend my friend Nancy’s wedding, doesn’t that count for something? Sponsoring his lifestyle turned out not to be the glue of our relationship after all. Back then, I was obsessed with Paul Simon’s Rhythm of the Saints and couldn’t get enough of the song Further to Fly. For me, it was about the cycle of life. It transported me as most great songs in my life do. The line “further to fly” really stuck with me. While it wasn’t about seeking more, it started making me question whether there was actually further to fly. Was this it? Was I always going to be the drummer’s girlfriend, (there’s a pattern here in case you missed it), the one who picked up the tab at her own birthday dinner because once again he had forgotten his wallet? Was I to understand that this was the best life had to offer me?

I don’t think so. I broke up with him and got a tattoo to remind me to never settle again. And to never question my right to happiness. Especially since I’ve appointed myself in charge of it. So, swing dancing. How fun was that? It checked so many boxes for me that I could literally feel myself unfurl from the life that had started making me feel so small. I made new friends. I was learning something fun. I socialized in the evenings after being by myself working from home all day, which I loved and needed as an extrovert. I was really into the music, the environment, the connections. It was such a healthy outlet. Wilson and I would meet at his house and practice what we had learned at the Hi-Ball Lounge. There was a certain comedy to it at the beginning as we tried to sort ourselves out. We eventually got there. I would don my blue suede Hush Puppies and was ready to hit the dance floor. The Hi-Ball was a bar in North Beach that offered free Lindy Hop and East Coast Swing lessons early in the week in the evenings before the music started. At the end of each night I looked forward to the next. There were lessons and dancing during the week, sometimes we’d hit another venue like 330 Ritch, and we most definitely attended Lindy in the Park on Sunday afternoons in the bandstand. We often danced at the DNA Lounge on Thursdays, as well. If you, like me, really got into the scene, then you’d aspire to get the much-coveted black card from Spencer. He DJ’d a lot of events and managed the DNA Lounge. He had so much style and was such a fixture in the scene. The card allowed you VIP access. You couldn’t ask for it. He had to be the one to offer it up to you because he had seen you kill it on the dance floor repeatedly. You’d get in for free, skip lines, and have access to the VIP lounge. You know this girl got hers. Wilson and I were so excited to finally earn ours. It didn’t make us better or cooler, it was more like a merit badge. Ok, define cool. Work hard, learn, have fun, get better, engage with the community and you too could earn your merit badge. Some weeks, I would go dancing up to seven different times. Where did I get all that energy? Oh right, I was playing. Something I hadn’t done in years.

An additional perk of dancing was cycling. I no longer had a car, there was no need for one in SF. I walked or rode my bike everywhere. I had ordered myself a beautiful Bianchi Eros in Celeste green. I still remember the day I picked it up. My friend Michael drove me to the shop in his old yellow truck. When we returned home, I somehow let go of the bike and it fell over. Right there on Fell street in the pandhandle. Now, with that nick on the top tube, it was finally truly mine. I loved that bike so hard! It was so much more fun to ride than the mountain bikes I’d been commuting on. One of my best friends, Suzanne, had let me test her road bike out so that I could see what I was missing. She and I had met on the CalTrans bike shuttle that took cyclist from the bus terminal downtown to the MacArthur Bart station and back once an hour for the morning and evening commutes. It cost $1 each way. I know, crazy! This was the answer to not being allowed to take bikes on the train during commute hours back in the old-fashioned days. Thankfully, this is no longer the case. Suzanne looked so cool in her cycling gear and I looked like a proper dork in my heavy cotton sweatshirt, cotton leggings, and old running sneakers, wearing my $5 sidewalk sale helmet, (I know—totally unsafe!), drenched in sweat—though the latter remains true to this day. She still became friends with me and in her classy and tasteful Suzanne way, expounded the many benefits of wicking materials. Soon after, I went to Pacific Bicycle in SoMa and bought myself a purple long-sleeve cycling shirt from a man I would meet again in a different life. I also picked up an 80’s geometric patterned jersey in Miami Vice colors at Aardvark in the Upper Haight. The fabric was rough, like you could scrub a pot really clean when you got done with your ride. It was not cool at all but I loved it. The 80’s were definitely not cool in the 90’s but this girl didn’t care. Weird, inside and out. This was also my first taste of how expensive cycling gear is but I digress. Suzanne quickly became one of my best friends. I loved how smart she was and her no-nonsense style that also managed to include her love of detailed vintage pieces. We took turns making dinner for each other. I learned to add a pinch of cayenne to my hearty soups from watching her. There was an exquisitiveness to her. She was such a captivating storyteller and could make any topic sound interesting. She also had an incredible sense of self and value system. I was still a work in progress. She was the inspiration for my new road bike and was a role model for my better future self.

After a night of swing dancing at the Hi-Ball, I often rode home a little before midnight, taking the scenic routes through Nob Hill and Pacific Heights to make my way back. I didn’t mind the steep hills. I preferred looking at the beautiful houses and landscaping without any real traffic to concern myself with. The thing about San Francisco is the fog—known as Karl to locals. The fog was high and created a blanket that held in place all of the loveliest spring blossom scents. My olfactory system was delighted on these rides at night. When I think of the city, I mostly think of abundant hydrangeas and Cala Lillies but I was engulfed by the many Angel’s Trumpet’s intoxicating scents on those nights. Riding home felt magical. Cycling was also how I met Wilson and started this new chapter of my life.

I made lifelong friends, attended parties and barbeques, went out to dinners, and we danced to live bands. Lee Presson and the Nails was a favorite of mine and Wilson. We’d danced to Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers—oh, Lavay!— and Indigo Swing. There was no shortage of really good music around. At first, I felt a little like an imposter. These people were cool and smart and had great jobs and I was just this newly single chick whose identity had inadvertently been whittled down to being the drummer’s girlfriend and misplaced behind a stack of bills and a couple bags of groceries, all of which I paid for, of course. During the drummer years, I felt socially awkward and introverted. We were constantly going to some show or some house party or another and it was expected of me that I would hang out with my boyfriend’s friends’ girlfriends—none of which I really liked not for lack of trying. A lot of them were grungy whereas I looked like I knew how to work an iron and wasn’t afraid to use it. I spent many a party petting some housecat in some corner of some apartment, watching the clock like a bored seventh-grader. So meeting Suzanne led me to buy a road bike. The road bike led me to meet Wilson. Wilson gently guided me out of my old life and into my new one, with the effortlessness of a docent. In other words, I knew it was happening and simultaneously, it had happened. At some point, I lost Wilson to grad school in Seattle but by then I had made new friends and started on new adventures. On a trip to Seattle with my new friends to dance at a big event, naturally I spent some time visiting Wilson and learning how to Tango with him for the first time. So many firsts! That weekend, when all of us women were trying to decide where to have breakfast—there were 10 very opinionated women—I announced that I was going to go on my own adventure and I’d see them back at the apartment later in the day. My other Susanne friend said to me as plain as day that I was clearly the most Alpha of them all because I wasn’t even going to bother inserting what I wanted into the mix, I was just going to go do it. For the record, I was in the company of very successful women I looked up to. It was also the first time I felt truly seen. Being a wallflower had never really suited me. It was a boring blip on the radar around the wrong people. Clearly feeling shy in the swing dancing scene didn’t last too long. I had finally found my people and rediscovered my extroversion. Hurray!

Cycling also led to my feeling independent. I loved nothing more than getting on my bike, going over Golden Gate Bridge, seeing how fast I could ride and how far I could go before turning back. I often stopped at Cala Foods, now a Whole Foods, on the way home to devore an entire pack of vegan Oreo-type cookies while I walked my bike the last two blocks to cool down. I ate like an athlete most of my life and sometimes that meant eating an entire pack of cookies all at once. I rode with Suzanne and Wilson, mostly to get around but sometimes for fun. Both took me on adventures. Suzanne talked me into doing a century on my mountain bike which was not the easiest ride. I was proud of myself for keeping up with her. Her elation and my exhaustion as we crossed the finish line was what led to the conversation around the differences in our bikes, and how a road bike felt like flying, of which I heartily approved. I also rode with several of the ferry commuters a few times a week from Larkspur over the Golden Gate Bridge, through the Presidio and back home. The intense perpendicular wind on the bridge was always a little nerve wracking but never let it be said that I don’t like a proper challenge. I didn’t really start riding with groups until much later.

@2026 Fabienne Jach. All rights reserved.