Yesterday afternoon I decided -- quite on a lark -- to go down to a theater in the nearest big city (about 30 miles away) to see "I'm Not There," the new movie about Bob Dylan. To get there I needed to do the following: get off work, throw a change of clothes on, get to the train station, catch a bus from the train, dodge freeway traffic, and walk blocks and blocks to the theater. All in less than an hour and a half.
Without going into exceptionally boring detail -- which involves getting turned around, losing ten minutes before realizing it, and walking right by the theater but not seeing it as it was tucked behind a few other buildings -- I didn't make it.
Normally I hate it when I'm confronted by sudden changes to plans that I'd set my heart on. I become agitated or upset or even downright nasty. But this time I decided that I wasn't going to let missing the movie ruin my evening and I was even more proud of myself because I actually "felt" the decision as well as "thought" it.
As I was downtown in the cultural district of the city anyway with time to kill I decided to wander a bit down the avenue I was on and take in the sights. I was surprised -- and quite pleasantly so -- because unlike most sections of a lot of the cities in this part of the country (with the possible exception of Austin) it reminded me a bit of the great Northeastern cities like Boston, which is one of my favorite cities ever.
There's such a difference between the cities in the Northeast/Midwest and those here in the southwest. Cities here have an elegant sort of aesthetic sense to them. Clean straight lines, streets running rationally. Minimalist. They feel young and fresh and clean, eager to learn and grow. It's like they're going out on the town and they're dressed to the nines. They're looking smart and they beckon towards people, urging to be filled.
Not so the cities of the older part of the country. They are organic creatures and when you walk through them it's like all those random blocks of material you throw into a patchwork quilt. They don't look like they'd work together, but they do. The people came there first and like an ivy that curls around a fence or crawls up a brick facade, the city grew up around them. They have twisty-turny streets and squished little alleyways and row upon row of attached little houses, brick streets and old lampposts.
For the most part cities here feel cold to me. I can't invest much in them because they don't make me feel like I'm part of them as much as I am moving through them. I fall in love with cities that allow me to absorb myself into them. I guess it's much harder for me to fall in love with a city that doesn't seem to have an old soul.
Anyway, I wandered the avenue for a while and enjoyed the busy feeling that comes with being immersed in the city and its sights. I decided to find a little out of the way cafe and eat dinner and soon thereafter sipped Chardonnay and ate steamed asparagus out on the patio, people-watching.
Somewhere during the meal it occurred to me that I was thoroughly content. Even happy. I wasn't lonely or longing for another person on the other side of the table to talk to. I wasn't feeling incomplete at all. And god, that felt good.
((Song: "Bob Dylan's Dream" by Bob Dylan. Lyrics here:
http://bobdylan.com/songs/dream.html ))
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