Me and Mom

By Emmy

"Learning about my mom's experience coming to San Francisco has made me really excited to go to a new place."

Emmy: I just wanted to talk about our experiences growing up in the different places—I mean, both, west coast still, the whole time.

Erika: Yeah, I have no idea what it's like to grow up in, or to live anywhere, but the west coast.

Emmy: So why don't you introduce yourself.

Erika: My name is Erika Sloan. I am… the mother of you, Emmy Balas, Amelia Lee, and your sister, Anya, Anya Marie Balas. Married to your dad. And I am an editor and an academic designer.

Emmy: I wanted to ask you a little bit about how you came to San Francisco, why did you decide to come to San Francisco? Cause you know, now this is my home.

Erika: I know, it's incredible to me that you have… actually grown up here because I never lived anywhere for more than five years.

Emmy: And I've lived here my whole life, only one move, which was to, two streets up, and back down. So very different, yeah.

Erika: Very different experience. And also an urban experience. Yes. Since I and Mimi lived in some suburban towns, but not ever in a city or a big city during that time.

How did I move here? I was living in Eugene, Oregon, and that's where I went to the University of Oregon. I was living there with my boyfriend. We had graduated from college and we were just, kind of deciding what to do next… and weren't really sure. We had kind of talked about going on, like, kind of a backpacking or like train-riding tour of Europe, kind of thing… but basically we're just like working in restaurants the summer after I graduated from college, just not really knowing what was next. I was an English major, I didn't have really concrete plans about what I wanted to do with my life. So we were, maybe at the end of the summer and we were actually just hanging out in our apartment and we had this really good friend that we also went to high school with and who we had been really good friends with throughout college, but he went to Dartmouth. We'd been in contact with him, but he was on a boat, a schooner off the coast of Maine, like, doing something crazy, like he always did. And it was kind of weird because we hadn't been able to get in touch with him, and we were in regular contact and we just hadn't heard from him in a long time. And literally we were like sitting in our apartment and he drove up in this butter-yellow beater Saab with a little U-haul trailer in the back. And he was like, hey guys, I'm moving to San Francisco. Do you want to come with me? And we were like, we just kinda like looked at each other and we were like, Hmm. Well, yeah, maybe!

Emmy: Had you ever heard of San Francisco before?

Erika: Oh yeah, of course, I'd been to San Francisco—actually I was, I came to San Francisco on my 16th birthday with my family and we did kind of the typical stuff, went to Ghirardelli square…

Emmy: Oh, right, right, oh my gosh [laughter].

Erika: —I remember I got like this giant chocolate on my 16th birthday. Anyway, that was kind of the highlight because I think at that point, I wasn't really excited about taking trips with my parents, but we got to come to San Francisco, which was very cool.

And, you know, we went to… well, I mean, it doesn't even exist anymore I don't think, like the Hard Rock Café—

Emmy: Oh my gosh [laughter].

Erika: In San Francisco, like I thought it was cool. So I had been to San Francisco, but in a very touristy way with my parents, I really didn't know that much about San Francisco. But anyway, back to the story we're sitting in our living room, our friend says, do you want to move to San Francisco? And we're like, yeah, maybe we do. We literally, that weekend drove with him down to San Francisco—really fun trip—and like spent a weekend, we just crashed on somebody's extra bedroom on the floor or something. And then went around and looked at apartments with our friend Jeff, and by the end of that weekend, we were like, yeah, we're, let's move to San Francisco.

So we came back, put in notice for our job. And two weeks later we just packed all our stuff and left for San Francisco. By that time, Jeff had a place. We crashed with him ‘til we could find a place. And funnily enough, the place that we ended up getting is two blocks from here in the other direction.

So I lived on 18th and Harrison—28 years, I've lived on the same six or ten blocks, of 18th street in the Mission in San Francisco.

Emmy: So once you came to San Francisco, did you know, okay, yeah, I'm going to like, be here for kind of while, or were you like…

Erika: It was just kind of open. I mean, I think for a while I thought maybe I would go to New York, because then I started working in publishing. But I like San Francisco, and I remember having these realizations, especially like the four year point, I was like, oh my gosh, I've been in San Francisco for four years, I can't believe that! That seems so weird. It feels like I just moved here, but it didn't because it already felt very familiar. San Francisco was the right place for me. I think I ended up really flourishing here and I love it here. I mean, there's been ups and downs, of course, but I kind of realized… this is my home. This is my place.

Emmy: What are your thoughts on me growing up here?

Erika: I am so happy for you! I mean, I think… because I didn't have exposure to a lot of things that you've had exposure to. I think growing up as you did, visiting art museums and, just having access to the amazing things we have access to in San Francisco, even just Golden Gate Park, it's just really special to have that whole combination of cultural events, plays, musical theater, just amazing films and art. I'm jealous of your youth in that way and also your freedom. And we've been lucky, San Francisco has been good to us and that we have been able to raise your guys here, it can be very challenging because San Francisco is so expensive. And that'll be interesting too, for you, when… you graduate from college and are deciding where you want to live.

Emmy: Learning about my mom's experience coming to San Francisco has made me really excited to go to a new place and… maybe have a similar experience that my mom had coming to San Francisco, and it's made me feel very connected to living here.

So, thanks Mom.