Tertulia

In my free time over the years, I have taken part in many volunteer and informal organizations related to my interests: local beekeeping associations in four cities, mycological societies in two, a book club, a couple of writing collectives, PTA, several MeetUp groups, and others focusing on prisoner rights and opposition to capital punishment. With few exceptions, these organizations have been socially and mentally stimulating, and they have been a source of many friends and acquaintances. There is one, though, that stands above the rest, the San Francisco tertulia.

For the last decade that I lived in San Francisco, I was fortunate to be part of an informal group that met every Saturday morning to share coffee and conversation. There was no agenda and no specific theme for the gatherings. The main thing the participants had in common was a desire to share one another’s company. Fellowship is a word that comes to mind, but it discounts the simple pleasure of getting together regularly with friends.

Over time, we began to refer to it as a tertulia, a Spanish word that typically connotes an informal gathering, usually at a bar, for discussions with a literary, artistic, or political focus. Our tertulia was nothing so grand, just friends from varied backgrounds getting together at a local coffee shop. It was more than a kaffeeklatsch, however. There was an intimacy to it that I have not experienced in other groups.

It began by happenstance. In the late 80s or early 90s, my good friend Len and I would go for a run almost every Saturday morning and afterward have coffee at a restaurant in the Inner Sunset near where we lived. Over time, others joined us until the meetings coalesced into a group of regulars. There were usually about a half dozen people, sometimes a few more, and we continued to meet about 8:30 every Saturday morning first at restaurants near Ninth and Irving and then across Golden Gate Park to a small coffee shop near Fulton.

I moved away in 2005, but the tertulia continued. Every time I visited San Francisco, I timed my trip so that I could join the group on Saturday morning. Over the years, aging, illness, and death took their toll on the members until the Saturday gatherings stopped. My dear friend Paul was a regular in the group (https://turn-stone.com/paul-here/). The group had a farewell brunch in the fall of 2022, and I returned to San Francisco specifically to attend it.

The last remaining participant recently posted this about the tertulia:

“About 25 years ago, I met a small group of people at a cafe, who I had seen there for a few weeks before. I saw a couple of them at a mushroom fair and I went up to them and told them that I saw them at the mushroom fair. They said that they saw me too and I was to sit down with them. They had been meeting every Saturday for around twenty years. I ain’t young and they were generally a little older than me. A really mixed group, male and female, smart, funny, and just a lot of fun to hang out with. And not a lot in common. Just good people. So for twenty more years, every Saturday, I was there to enjoy their company. It became my church, a small community that shared their time and lives. Really fulfilling. But when Covid hit we had almost a year break. Then when weather permitted we met outside in the park. This continued until age crept in, and one person couldn’t make the drive, then over a year or two, three more stopped coming and passed on. Quite sad. Since then, I’m back at the same cafe every Saturday morning hoping to have the same chance encounter change into a very rewarding experience.”

My friend captured what was special about the tertulia when he wrote, “It became my church, a small community that shared their time and lives.” The San Francisco tertulia was unique, a thing of that time and place and involving that specific group of people, a thing that is unlikely to be replicated. Here in Tucson, I join friends regularly for beer or coffee, and I attend meetings of ad hoc groups as well as of formal organizations. Those gatherings, formal or informal, are both socially and mentally stimulating. Yet, they lack the intimacy of the tertulia. I believe that sort of intimate community has to evolve slowly over time, blending the personalities of its participants to develop its own character. It cannot be created by intention like a MeetUp group or an organization dedicated in a specific topic such as a beekeeping.

I, too, keep hoping that a “chance encounter” or gatherings with friends might evolve into another tertulia. Even if that doesn’t happen, I have warm memories of those Saturdays so long ago.