pedestrian revolutionaries
I’ve just spent most of the past week walking the streets of Norfolk, VA- minding the baby while Ms Fishuncle works her arse off on a big event. In most American cities, it seems the presence of pedestrians indicates that you’re either a) on the wrong side of town or b) shopping. On foot, outside of a mall, you’re sufficiently unusual that any other walkers seem compelled to strike up conversation, as if to confirm you’re not a mirage, that they’re not the only ones. Worse, as the entire city is designed for cars, not humans, it’s not even as if you can walk toanywhere. One is compelled to describe a meandering, aimless, and ultimately circuitous route to nowhere and back.
All of which is a precise and polar opposite to much of what I love about New York. Everyone walks and there are millions of possible destinations. You step out of your front door into a chaotic whirl of bustle and froth, and your every conversation is an encounter with a real live New Yorker who, in all probability, is up to all sorts of things, and is certainly going somewhere interesting and enriching.
All in all, Monday’s flight (ORF->EWR) is pretty much the most welcome thing I can think of. But I can’t help daydreaming of home, London, where my roots and my life are. Comfortable and unassuming, like an old pair of shoes.
And, while I’ve been writing this, in this godforsaken fake marble hotel bar, a crowd of PETA donors have come in, having thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of Ms Fishuncle and colleagues, and a gay man is standing on a table singing opera in a glorious falsetto, showing me that wherever you are, life is precisely what you make it, and you should never allow circumstances to cramp your style.
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