Type “cathedral” into my brain’s large language model, you’ll get an image of 261 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco’s North Beach. 

This t-shirt unlocks so much for me … beginning and ending with the Pilgrimage.

Whenever work or friends would take me to San Francisco, I’d stay at the Hotel Rex on Sutter, which was part of Chip Conley’s Joie de Vivre collection of boutique hotels, each one inspired by a different magazine. The Rex was inspired by the New Yorker, and was designed to evoke San Fran’s literary salons of the 1920s and 30s.

Their lounge was The Library, all cushy chairs, reading lamps and the magical musty smell of old books (swoon).

Its atmosphere was cozily curated for unburdening … conducive to liberating one’s hands to alternate between a good book, a pen and paper, and a half-full glass of the house red.  

Make a left exiting the hotel, I’d walk the few blocks down to Bush, hang a left and climb its hill to the iconic Dragon’s Gate.

From there take a savoring stroll through North America’s oldest and largest Chinatown, a world unto itself. 

Keep walkin’ until I find North Beach. Make the right, slowing to a reverent saunter through Jack Kerouac Alley, pausing to bow and whisper read his pavement words etched in its center, “The air was soft the stars so fine the promise of every cobbled alley so great.”

And then, proof that alley promises come true: City Lights — Ferlinghetti’s fierce, tender, defiantly flickering eternal flame of a bookstore. 

Every single second I’ve spent walking amongst its stacks has been a replenishing.

The sound of one’s shoes creaking its old wooden floors while in slow-browse reverie? A poetry all its own. 

I love reading the staff’s hand-written recommendations slash love letters adorning the shelves as much as I do the books they hype.

The pleasure of stumbling upon treasure you didn’t even know to look for.

Going upstairs to the poetry room, where Ferlinghetti’s rocker — the ‘poet’s chair’ — still sits by the window in open invitation. 

Harvesting an armful of sustenance for the suitcase home.

Walking back to the Rex drunk on Kerouac’s soft air and fine stars, clutching my brown paper bag tightly as I imagine he did his.