I get it. I'm a rube, a boob and a boor. I'm a hick, and uncivilized, and a bumpkin. I'm unappreciative of everything vital and visceral and real that makes the world function as I know it.
Start pointing and laughing at the little girl from Alabama: I don't like New York City.
Are ya done? I can give you some superficial reasons--I don't like musical theater. Or really, non-musical theater. I'm not crazy experimental with food. So if you take me to an Ethiopian-Mexican fusion place, I'm probably not going to be totally psyched. I have a sensitive sense of smell. I don't like sitting on a taxi seat that has been sat upon by 8 million other butts. *shiver*
There's also a more fundamental reason. And it has more to do with how and where I was raised. And probably the fact that my parents don't love New York, either. This reason is twofold: I need horizon. I need to see the sun move across the sky. I need to see the day end (and unfortunately with kids) I often see the day begin. I need to look before me and see space, not people, or buildings, or scaffolding. I need the sky to orient myself, not only by compass points, but in a more primal way. I get lost in the city. Take Chicago, for example. Big city, yes? Skyscrapers, noise, subways churning and pulsing underfoot. Stinky. But, in one moment, I can cross Lake Shore Drive and there I am, looking at what, for all intents and purposes, could be an ocean. A distant horizon. Possibility.
Second, I need to be away from people. You might have suspected this, but I don't like people very much. And in the city, it's impossible to get away from them or their presence. In an apartment, I'm aware of them above me, and below me. I'm aware of them on the street as they brusquely move by me. I'm aware of them in the park, as I can still hear the cars, the louder conversations.
We went to the petting zoo in central park, and we saw the most stressed out farm animals I've ever seen. They live near a hospital or an ambulance center, or something, and in the course of the ten minutes we were there, 3 ambulances screeched by. The calf finally had enough and went into his lean-to and set his head down. The goat looked like he'd been butting the cement wall for some time, and the llamas, well, they looked ridiculous because they'd just been shorn.
But I felt like the calf. I NEED silence occasionally. I need to be alone with something greater than me--the ocean is my favorite, a lake of any size will do, the woods, my house when I'm alone. I can find places where I can imagine I'm the only person in the world and there is total science. I can listen to the lapping of waves or the pounding of surf and remember that I am a basic animal. I'm not a big camper--I like my suburban conveniences. But I like to walk in the woods, and listen to the peculiar sound the wind makes through pine needles. To see the seasons. To smell the moss and the damp decay.
So, maybe it's because I've got a west coast bias. I share the love of things that a lot of people out there do. Sure, the pace is slower. Sure, the people are generally working at jobs that have smaller stakes than Wall Street experts who shape the world's economy. But when I go back to SoCal, people are running on the beach, not with ipods to create their isolation, but just their moving body and the beach and the water. Instead of hitting the gym before work, a lucky few hit the beach for some early morning surfing. There's the remnants of natural harmony, and no one's fighting that vestigial impulse to find nature.
That being said, I respect the city. Fine. Stop snickering at me, New York.
So, our trip to the Big Apple (why apple?) is obviously something I have to psych myself up for. It was a four day extravaganza, and a monumental walking tour. Of course, with every step, in front of nearly every building, I thought, "wouldn't a pressure washer make this just SO much nicer?" I mean, HONESTLY, as long as the super is there, how hard would it be to go out there once a week, blast the dog crap and gum of the sidewalk, and that blackish grime off the bottom six inches of the building that is a nasty dried combination of pedestrian's spilled drinks, dog pee, crap splashed up from the street, and please, GOD don't tell me what else? What the city needs is a little bleach and a nuclear-cloud sized amount of Febreeze.
Human nature is NOT the kind of nature I like to hang out around.
But, we're home. And the thunderstorm rolled through last night, and I sat by the window and listened to it pour. It's nice to be home.
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