0:00 The Palace of Fine Arts was built to crumble.0:04 Last week, we found magic in the painted murals of the Mission, stories that came alive on brick walls.0:14 But what about a story that was designed, from its very beginning, to simply disappear?0:22 I’m sitting by the lagoon as the fog starts its slow crawl over the Presidio.0:30 The rotunda is soft-focused, a Roman ghost dropped into the Marina district.0:37 Tourists are taking the same picture, over and over.0:42 The one with the dome perfectly reflected in the water.0:47 But I’m not looking at the dome.0:50 I’m looking at the women.0:53 The ones at the top of the colonnade, holding up the planters.0:59 The official story calls them the “weeping maidens,” crying because art would be extinguished without patronage.1:09 Their tears are supposed to be the water that drips from the plants above.1:17 I’ve lived here for fifteen years.1:20 I walk this path two, maybe three times a week.1:24 And I started to notice something.1:28 A flicker.1:29 You see it from the corner of your eye.1:32 Sometimes, just as the sun sets behind the Golden Gate Bridge, the light hitting the columns doesn’t just… reflect.1:43 It seems to get caught.1:46 It holds for a second too long.1:49 And the water that drips from the maidens… it’s not always just water.1:55 I’ve seen it catch the light like a prism, throwing a tiny, impossible rainbow onto the stone for a split second.2:06 Most people are looking at their phones, or the swans.2:11 They don’t see it.2:13 But I do.2:14 And tonight, the fog is so thick you can taste it.2:19 The air is heavy.2:20 Still.2:21 There’s almost no one here.2:24 And that’s when I hear it.2:26 It’s not a sound, at first.2:29 It’s a feeling.2:30 A low hum that vibrates up through the soles of my shoes.2:36 I stand up, walk closer to the colonnade, right under one of the maidens.2:43 The hum is stronger here.2:45 It’s a chord.2:46 A single, perfect, resonant note that seems to come from the stone itself.2:54 I look up.2:54 A drop of water is forming.2:57 But it’s not water.2:59 It’s… light.3:00 A tiny bead of pure, liquid starlight.3:04 It hangs there for a beat.3:06 Two beats.3:07 The hum crests.3:09 And the droplet falls.3:11 But it doesn’t hit the ground.3:14 It evaporates a foot from the pavement in a silent puff of shimmering mist.3:21 Oh.3:21 Ohhh.3:22 I see it now.3:23 They’re not weeping because art is gone.3:27 They’re not weeping at ALL.3:29 They are creating.3:31 The Palace wasn’t built to be a museum for art that already exists.3:38 It’s a conduit.3:39 A source.3:40 These figures aren't mourning.3:43 They are concentrating.3:45 Taking in the city’s dreams, its heartbreaks, its ambitions… and weeping them back out as pure, raw potential.3:56 That hum is the sound of creation.3:59 Those drops of light are the first spark of a song.4:04 The kernel of a novel.4:06 The color for a painting that doesn’t exist yet.4:10 This whole place, this beautiful, temporary ruin… it’s a fountain.4:17 Not of water, but of inspiration, spilling out into the San Francisco fog.4:24 I turn and walk away from the lagoon, pulling my collar up against the chill.4:31 The mist feels different on my skin now.4:35 It feels like possibility.4:38 It feels like I just breathed in a story waiting to be told.
