Twenty steps to a new Life:
- 1986 Yann, (my French Husband) took a year off to travel through the U.S.A..
- He had a childhood friend who lived in Chicago, so he went there first.
- Skylark was a $300 rusty car. He bought it to see his dream:
- The setting sun over the Pacific.
- During a freak snowstorm in Colorado he kissed a girl in the backseat of a police car.
- Lack of modern devises added with a terrible sense of direction landed him in East L.A.
- In a grocery store parking lot Skylark was his hotel. A gang greeted him. Not digging L.A. he headed down I-5.
- Remembering a note his Mother's neighbor gave him, he reached for his wallet.
- The "note" said, "If in California I have a daughter who lives in Gustine."
- At that very moment the road sign read: "Gustine" Yann pulled off.
- Madame H. lived on a horse ranch and cooked French food.
- Madame H. had a French niece, who was married to an American man and lived in San Francisco. Yann went to visit them.
- They were vegetarians. Yann gave up meat.
- Every night, every dance imaginable happened at the I-Beam: Rock, punk, ballet, jazz, slow, hip-hop to the sound of New Wave. Yann's newfound friend's told him it was one of the hottest nightclubs in town, gay most nights, but on Tuesday it was a free for all, a wonderful wild dance scene. They went dancing.
- Tuesday, April 1986, 10:00 p.m., 1748 Haight Street, San Francisco, a lonely girl danced at the I-Beam. Yann noticed.
- Language skills were at a minimum. Yann told the girl his name.
- The disco ball's sparks couldn't hold a candle to the flame that started with that one word: John.
- Yann's heart wanted to stay in San Francisco.
- Needing a job, without a green card Yann became an Aupair, and modeled nude (but you don't want to hear about that do you?)
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