I'm sitting here at the Barnes & Noble's in Burbank, trying to type quickly before my computer battery dies out. Despite the advice given to me by the school computer tech, no amount of being nice to this battery has saved it. I could get about three hours of use out of it before recharging when I first received the computer--now I get an hour if I'm lucky. Apparently my personal magnetism just sucks the things dry too quickly. I have the same effect on street lamps and small appliances.
It's very pleasant in here, of course, all air-conditioned and smelling of coffee, but as I sit by the window watching the traffic chug past on San Fernando Boulevard--grimy SUVs and shiny black sports cars and unmarked white vans (thanks to television and movies, I now distrust all white vans; I assume they're carrying undercover police teams or super-spies from the government intent on erasing my identity), tiny parking lots filled with more autos in spaces while yet other vehicles circle like floundering sharks (how's that for mixing marine metaphors? And alliteration, also!), construction notices and street signs and pylons and iron fences and concrete barriers stretching on endlessly in every direction, I have to ask: how do people live here? Any of you who've lived in LA want to help me out with this one?
I've never been a big city guy. I really enjoy visiting a city (if someone else is driving, anyway); the cultural mish-mash, the thrusting sense of purpose everyone exhibits, the great variety of establishments (it is neat to be able to peruse a Medievalist book store, then hop across the street to shop carrying Japanese kimonos and Pocky! candy, and end the evening dining on Ethiopian cuisine), and the little feeling of smug sophistication which seems to settle on you like bus exhaust when you are there. I feel more cosmopolitan in the city (which seems to be obvious and redundant, but I stick by it), a worldly man of culture and refinement.
Yet I couldn’t manage it for any length of time. After a day or two, I’m ready to be out of the madness of traffic, away from constant light and noise and crowd. You have to be part of a city all the time, living in its pulse, and sometimes I just need to be on my own. I don’t even like people passing within four feet of me, so you can imagine how I fare in a crowd.
We did live in Toronto for nine months, and of any big city I’ve been to, it’s the one I might be able to manage. It’s polite, it’s pretty (most of the time), and its public transportation is clean and efficient (differentiating it from, say, New York or any other large East Coast city). I still needed space, but I spent most of my time hanging around the University with its open grounds, its 19th century halls and chapels, and its massive library.
I guess I could live in a city if I could isolate myself in a few convenient, comfortable nooks and find ways to slip unobtrusively between them at need. I suppose this is what most city dwellers do, in a sense. But even in Toronto I often felt rushed, soiled, and ground down. I miss quiet breezes, vistas of green trees without the tangled web of steel and concrete interrupting them, and the simple knowledge that there isn’t another vast tract of houses over the next ridge—there’s only another ridge.
Okay--I’ll go back to grading papers now, the mental equivalent of living in an ugly tenement experiencing a turf war. Makes this Burbank neighborhood seem quite nice in comparison, really.
2 comments:
I think I was prepared for living in Los Angeles by living in Riverside for a while; North Hollywood was like Riverside, but with more cool stuff. It also helped immensely to have the Campaign people all around, so there was always something fun to do or someone to hang out with. And I developed a strange fondness for the area in both cases (though in Riverside it was my first experience of living outside of my parents' house, which probably makes a great difference in perception). I've become quite fond of Minneapolis, partially because of the friends I've made and the incredible comics and games shops, but also because it's so green, with trees and ivy everywhere. Granted, it's a well-tended block since we live next to the museum; two or three blocks away, things start to degenerate. I'll miss Minneapolis when we move, I'm certain of that, but I'll still be glad to get out of an urban environment. I miss the stars, and I miss the silence at night...
Moving to San Diego from the mountains was quite a shock to me, and I had a really hard time with it. At first I loved the change, and of course I loved the ocean being so close. After a while though, it really wore on my and I really didn't like it anymore. That being said, I think my experience was similar to Devin's in that it prepared me for living in Denver. Denver is smaller (in population) and much more spread out than San Diego, so it was a nice sigh of relief after San Diego. I lived in the suburbs, and it was ok. I didn't love it, but it was ok. I spent a weekend in downtown Denver in a hotel, and I actually loved it. Of course, that was a weekend getaway. When I moved back home, I realized how much I was simply tolerating Denver and San Diego, and how much I LOVE living in the mountains. I don't plan on leaving again, unless of course God has other plans for me. But I hope he doesn't. In a couple of years I just need God to bring me the perfect man who also wants to spend the rest of his life in the mountains...lol.
I do know the feeling you're talking about when you say you feel cosmopolitan in the city. I've always been a small town girl, and have always still felt that way inside. Navigating my way around Denver though, after having lived there for a few years, I felt so much more sophisticated and grown up for some strange reason. It felt kind of cool to tell people my mailing address, with the city actually being a big city that everyone knows, rather than some obscure one that you have to spell three times and clarify that it's all one word. I also enjoyed the convenience of everything, the proximity. Still, it seemed to lack something special to me, and there was no joy in coming home everyday. It was just some house in a suburbian track, a cookie cutter to the house next to it. That's not for me, thanks :)
Post a Comment