I didn’t want to live in the city because if you forget and leave something on the seat of your car, someone will smash the window and take it. Driving around looking for parking leaves me feel hollow, like someone scooped out my organs in order to fry them in oil. Money flies out of my hands; the crush of people exhausts me.
But I didn’t want to live where nothing happened, and at one point made a drastic career change to prevent it. I knew that in isolated areas, it’s a significant event to congregate at a major franchise like Sizzler. Days feel like acres. The familiar, dreary surroundings burn into your brain like the after image on a television screen. I wanted to be within ten minutes of a city, where you can get food that tastes so good that you’ll remember it months later, even if you forget who you were with and what you talked about.
I once knew a girl who rented a cheap apartment in an expensive area of the city, and she could only park her car in a driveway on certain hours of the week. She loved it. I still know a girl who married someone who grew up a mile away from her, and they both live near their small hometown.
I’m not like either of them; I live somewhere inbetween. A half block from my building lets me stand on a tree-lined street that reaches up into the Oakland hills. The other direction reveals a view of downtown Oakland, and beyond that, on a clear day, a hazy outline of downtown San Francisco. I know that if I lived in the city, its buildings would seem to curl over my head like knuckles. From this distance, they look like outstretched fingers. I should laugh at myself for making life decisions based on a carefully tuned, somewhat deranged sense of urban ambivalence, but having actually achieved that delicate equilibrium, I’m at a loss to describe my deep feeling of comfort.
I was trying to think of something witty. But being someone who lives with constant sensibility to the deep meaning of spaces and what fills them, that was just fucking beautiful.
so what you’re saying is you are not moving here to Indiana?
drat…
So what you’re saying is you’re not moving away from Indiana--? Curses!
As we’re in the middle of deciding whether we’re city mice or country mice, you just helped us stay right where we are, about a mile and a half from Greg.
totally know what you mean.
Bellisima!
This is exactly how I live. 5 minutes from downtown by car, but on a tree-lined street, and I can see the Mountains from my balcony.
i just want to say that i like serious greg every bit as much as i like snarky greg.
helenjane: ONE OF US. ONE OF US.
IT’s nice that you live right near a city that you NEVER COME TO
try choosing between countries, or continents, and the sense of “urban ambivalence” gets a lot stronger ...
this was a fantastic post. thanks.
I grew up in a city. I went to school in a city. I married a city girl. I HATE the city, just as she does. I like being able to drive a couple of hours to attend the opera, or do some other city thing, without having to put up with the crime, the crowds, the traffic, the crowds, the panhandlers, the crowds, and all those people. I LOVE being able to sit in my living room watching the wildlife, or the wind in the trees, or the rain on the deck. I LOVE being able to walk out of my house in underwear or less without being in fear of arrest for indecent exposure. (Although I might be arrested for cruelty to animals if any of them can see me!) I LOVE that Greg settled as close to where he grew up as he did so that I can see him a few times a year.
Yes, cities are beautiful. From a distance.
Nice post...I was just in Oakland on Sunday.
Being away from the city can grow on you, even if you’ve known/believed your whole life that you are a city person. I am hoping to escape back to city life before I am completely brainwashed and start to actively LIKE it. Ick.
Some people in SF thought I was insane for moving out to the western neighborhoods but it’s exactly as you describe it - I look out my front window to see trees and parking (usually), but half a block away is a teeming boulevard that runs four miles to the heart of the urban core. I can get to the city quickly, and then get away from it - and the country is just as close. What a gift to find yourself with the best of both worlds. I mean, other than the hermaphroditism.
I moved to NYC a year ago from Atlanta via Nashville. The grass is always greener, the water ...sweeter. But at least I can buy beer on Sunday!!
yay Papa Goose!!! I am so with you! especially the part about endangering the wildlife with my bared flesh…
in fact, in an odd coincidence, I very recently felt the need to post on my site about my attachment to the very small place in which I live… is it Spring that brings this out in us?
Great post, from one who lives out in the boonies (and loves it) and misses Chicago with all her heart.
What I find interesting is that, although I live in the city now and really like it, I react with unmitigated horror when I think of raising kids here--no backyards! Yes, there are very nice playgrounds, but--no backyards! But then my friend from Brooklyn thinks of raising kids in the suburbs, having to drive them everywhere, as child abuse. It’s like where you want your kids to be is the litmus test for whether you’re really a city/suburb/country person.
im a wilderness folk, but not so wilderness that i cant drive to town every so often. right now, the nearest town being 85 miles away is a bit much, but there is something to being by yourself, in a place where you can go anywhere and the sky reaches forever, and you can be as alone as you wish, for as long as you like, and everything is mostly on your own terms.
If you leave something on the seat of a car, the next passenger in the taxicab will take it. If you actually own a car, at least in NYC, and clog up streets with it instead of taking the subway like normal folk, you deserve whatever havoc is wrecked upon them. I know - I’m so mean.
I love living in the middle of the city… can’t imagine having to get into a car to get to where I want to go.
The 24-hour CVS is 3 blocks from my apartment as well as 2 all-night cafes. I escape to an enormous “in-ground” pool on my roof, surrounded by trees and plants, with a fantabulous view of the Washington Monument and National Cathedral. My suburban friends can barely boast of having a postage stamp sized yard to go with their townhouse and SUV.
I enjoyed my weeklong break in the town I grew up in.... but felt trapped because you need a car to get anywhere.... even though a perfectly decent-sized-city is only a 15-minute drive away. It was a lovely visit but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to live there.
this really was lovely. your “loss to describe” looks like a gift, from here.
and since we’re weighing in, here: i love trees but i find it hard to function without a few nice tall buildings to lean on during a drunken stumble home.
i fall on the side of frank o’hara: “I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless i know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally /regret/ life”
ok. maybe your idea is better.
dude. you just summed up why i live in newport. well. all that and the chicks.
When I moved with wife & family to Riverdale (technically NYC, specifically Bronx, but just a few blocks from the city line), I was walking down the street a few days after the move and overheard the following conversation:
Person A: Look at this! This is the suburbs! You swore that you would NEVER move to the suburbs!
Person B: It’s NOT the suburbs. You can still get cheap Indian food delivered!
“Days feel like acres. The familiar, dreary surroundings burn into your brain like the after image on a television screen.”
“I know that if I lived in the city, its buildings would seem to curl over my head like knuckles. From this distance, they look like outstretched fingers.”
Slap yo mama good.