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I remember very clearly stopping moments before the Golden Gate Bridge. I thought there was something wrong with the car, but you had a plan, something you had been thinking of for a long while. Something that to this day still makes me smile. You had taped your phone to the front bumper of the car and started filming a video. “Now you stay here,” you had said to the phone, then smiled with only half your mouth and backed away. Once back in the car, we crested a small hill and were greeted by low-hanging clouds, the tips of the red bridge peeking out of them, and all I could think was I am so glad we caught this on camera. By the time we got to Lombard Street, your phone had died, that’s what happens when we take a wrong turn and have to backtrack. But the idea of a cute traveller’s video was enough. From Lombard Street, we drove down to the Fisherman's Wharf, a dirty boardwalk full of cheap places to eat, buskers, and a group of people dancing on the street. I was lost in its abnormality. I had honestly never seen anything so free as this before. Tourists and street folk mixed like there was no difference between them and they all danced, open-mouthed smiles across their faces. I itched to join them. You barely had any time to park before I jumped out with a scream of delight. The smells of seawater and trash floated through the air and I floated through all the happy moving bodies. Garbage bin lids smashed against each other to the tune of a boombox and some maracas. This was music. I wanted to move and dance and laugh and scream, letting this moment that I knew would never come again wash over me, like waves washing against the side of the ancient pier. And there you were, my first and only boyfriend, holding my phone high above your head, trying to capture shots of us dancing. I was a blur of long whipping brunette hair and polka dots. You were as stiff as a tall, white lamppost stuffed into a pair of jeans. That’s when I had first spotted them. She wore a tight leather skirt and cropped hair that curled around her ears; she was a goddess of the pier and of dancing. She bent and twisted low; she was older, and for that I immediately loved her. I wanted to be just like her, to absorb the eyes of my partner like she did hers. He was a decent looking guy, too. He wore cargo shorts and a light green graphic T-shirt, his hair was short and spiky, like hers. He wore glasses and had a strong, square jaw. They were perfect together, their hands never not touching as they both bent down in some sort of a Russian twist position. They had noticed us too. Apparently, my dancing was infectious. Then the leader of our tribe of street dancers and tourists, a man who looked like he had lived many years on the street called me over. His skin was pocked and harsh, his eyes ringed with pink, and when he opened his mouth to ask me to scream for him, his smile was full of bad, cream coloured teeth. I didn't hold back. I let all the building energy, all my joy spill out from my lips and into his crowd. And with a smile that grew deeper and deeper he asked me to scream again, and again. I complied, happy to do so. And all around us, legs wrapped in fishnet, lips painted red, large golden hoops bouncing from ears, and open blazers revealing hairy, wet chests continued to move and groove to the natural sounds. I loved this moment, I really loved it.