Jan's Story Read Online Free Page A

thought it was exciting. We both knew it would be complicated, and we both had no doubts that in the end it would be fine.
    Because we had each other. That is what fine is all about.
    There were plenty of real life concerns in our early days. It was 1985, and my bank account was pretty much empty from my divorce and the legal fees. At the time, I was based in the CBS News Bureau in San Francisco. Our love triggered her life-changing moment.
    She was in Seattle and quit her job. We needed to be together. I drove up in my second-hand Oldsmobile, rented a U-Haul trailer, and we packed her small apartment and moved her to where I was, and to where we would make our lives one.
    We managed to scrape some money together and buy a tiny house in San Francisco in a neighborhood called Eureka Valley which was, as quirky San Francisco goes, not in a valley at all, but on a hill. And not just a hill, but a steep, steep hill up from the Castro District of San Francisco.
    Our house was one of several ticky-tacky row houses built in the 1950s for policemen or teachers as affordable housing in the city. We loved it because it was a part of the city, perfectly plain and a touch ugly on the outside since it was devoid of any architectural charm. It was a box with windows in a series of houses that looked like boxes all running together. The outside paint job stayed with the theme of very ordinary … beige. I remember thinking that even the roof was boring … perfectly flat.
    I loved it because I could almost afford it, and Jan loved it because it was ours.
    The main floor was a living and dining room and a true 1950s kitchen. And the best part was that it came with a small corner fireplace in the living room. Upstairs had the only bathroom and three amazingly compact bedrooms. Each floor, divided up as it was into different rooms, had just slightly more total space than our two-car garage on the street level.
    It had been a rental house when we bought it, so it was wanting for love and care. Every wall needed paint. But we didn't mind since all the work was just another part of making it ours.
    From the first floor at night, as the fog slipped over the western hills and started toward the city, we could look out our living room windows and watch the first strands drifting down our street. Then came the real gusts and finally, we would all but lose the houses across the street.
    Upstairs, the largest bedroom faced the street and seemed the perfect master bedroom. From the windows, we could see over the neighbors' roofs and on to downtown; City Hall, the Bay Bridge, the San Francisco Bay itself. I thought how wonderful to put our bed in this room and wake up each morning to the glittering city of San Francisco.
    And so we did. We lasted maybe two nights.
    The steep hill we lived on started several blocks down from us, so by the time a car reached the street in front of our house, it was deep down into first gear and struggling against an almost 45-degree incline, transmission grinding and engine at full throttle. All night long, we would be tossed awake by yet another mechanical assault on the top of the hill.
    We finally retreated to the back bedroom, a space so small that we could just fit our queen sized bed with one side flush against the wall. That meant we had to climb onto the bed to get the covers straightened on that side. But it was quiet.
    Good things happened in that bedroom. And in the morning the sun would pour in.
    Downstairs, carefully detailed wooden molding ran along the ceiling in the living/dining area, cupids, flowers or such—a touch of art in an otherwise cardboard box of a house.
    â€œI'm going to paint it,” Jan announced one day. “Pink and gold.”
    Along the way, she added blue to the mix, working slowly and carefully, highlighting the different parts of the molding. For weeks, she climbed a ladder each day with tiny brushes and painted. She added elegance to the space.
    â€œIt's all about