I lived in this city for almost a decade until I fell out of love with it. Romance fades, I suppose, with age and the sober realities of the practical. Even enumerating the reasons seems deflating. The expensive rents. The traffic. The parking. The high costs of living, period.

I ended up fleeing the fog of the city for the sunshine and quiet of the East Bay. I’m infinitely happier now that I live elsewhere, and I commute to The City only for work, but at the time it felt like moving out of San Francisco was like a demotion. Or even an expulsion: I felt like I used to belong, and that the city belonged to me as well, but that people with more money had pushed me out, or so I thought then. The city had changed, and I had lost my privileges.

Some time ago I was driving around late at night in The City after a show and was momentarily pierced by the beauty of all the lights. Lining the avenues, in strands on bridges. The energy. The idea that something was happening somewhere, to someone. It made me want to commit something mildly transgressive before I went home across the bridge. God I missed living there.

But on evenings like these — a reward after a long workday, to be viewed only during my daily commute — I am reminded that it’s not just the people who live there, or the hands that made the buildings, or the vivacity and energy that makes a city beautiful.

It’s also the skies above it, and those skies belong to everyone.