SAN FRANCISCO — It's been so long since I've seen you. You've lost some of that free bohemian spirit, but you're not as young as you used to be. Still a breathtaking beauty. You've changed — and so have I.

I'm speaking to San Francisco, the city of hills built on dreams of gold. The city that inspired the Beat poets. The city on the blue bay, with fog horns and two magnificent bridges that were built during the1930s, to last several lifetimes.

For new San Francisco was all around me, positively plush. Elegance radiated everywhere on the cityscape. Not a MAGA hat in sight. How refreshing. As a Washingtonian now, attuned to what gives on the political battlefield every waking hour, I wished I could stay a while.

People I passed on the streets seemed to have other things on their minds than the government nightmare in which we're living. They seemed lighter of heart and step, and sharper dressers, too. High-end fashion, like Valentino and Dolce Gabbana, have set up shop, but what happened to old-school Gump's? The architecture, new and old, is a graceful mixed salad, pleasing to the eye. The infusion of new money, coming from Silicon Valley, is hard to miss.

It's a case study of extreme income inequality, with the homeless population clearly etched on the canvas of street life.

San Francisco's spiffy new look has confirmed something I sensed ages ago: It is the city, the one city in America, that has a female — or feminine — look and sensibility. Romance and whimsy still live here, like the pink fantasia, a museum of ice cream (that charges a fortune). Washington is decidedly the most masculine city in the land — in design, memorials and power.

Ironically, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco is the leading voice of reason in an age of nonsense.

Half a lifetime ago, I lived here near the top of a rustic untouched hill that had a community garden with a sign asking people not to trespass — "for hearts are easily broken." I found that out the hard way, when a beautiful marriage ended up burning down. He was a British lawyer, and I was a journalist.

I had writerly hopes and cut my teeth on my first autobiographical novel. We had a lively living room with friends visiting often. He was homesick for London; I was so happy to be back in America. The same was true for me when we lived in London, where I worked for CBS News. Although I was an Anglophile, learning social lessons was still uphill.

We tried anyway. But one June day, I ran away from home. I wasn't going back. I drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to stay at my Aunt Mary's place in Marin County. She was out, but left some chocolates in the floral guest room. As a young woman artist, she had left Wisconsin to seek her fortune. She never went back.

San Francisco's original miners weren't the only dreamers. Caffeinated, the city colors one's possibilities in rosier shades than most. (Beloved San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen used to write of "the City.") It gave me that gift, anyway. When I left, I was gone, a chapter ended. The city was frozen in memory. Twenty years went by.

A young French man working in a Parisian cafe said: "There are so many hills. That gives many points of view."

How true. As I walked through the wind and rain around Union Square, I was sharply reminded how steep are those hills. Cable cars made all the sense in the world. I hopped on one, glad this whiff of old San Francisco was alive and well — for $7 up or down the line.

A crepe eatery sign tells you to only take as many napkins as you need. Heart-shaped balloon artworks brighten the public square.

I have to leave too soon. But I found my heart again in San Francisco.

To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit the website, creators.com.