City Blocks

This morning, before heading into the office, I took an Uber to drop my cat at the vet.  I lugged my 25 pound ball of fur in his navy blue carrier down three flights of stairs and climbed into the back of a stranger's car, careful not to slip on the ice and snow as I climbed into said car, and paid them to drive me a few miles down the road to my vet's office.  Nolan was yowling the entire time, the Uber driver was not exactly amused. I used an Uber again tonight after work when I picked up my cat, paid the hefty vet bill, and took us both upstairs out of the frigid temperatures.  Nolan meowing through it all, yet again.

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Last week, I had to travel to Ithaca for work.  Since I haven't been able to move my car for weeks now thanks to the snow (and fear of losing what has become a very treasured and rare parking spot) I rented a car.  After finishing the business part of my trip and starting the long drive back to Boston from upstate New York, I stopped at Target, keen to use this one opportunity with a car to stock up on various sundry items that are always most easily purchased at a big box store like paper towels and cat litter.  Never underestimate the power of a Target run, particularly when it only happens on rare occasions.

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I have a co-worker who is based out of my company's Ohio location.  Whenever he is in the Boston office, he swings by my office to say hello.  It is a rare visit when he doesn't comment on my shoe drawer (yes, I literally have an entire file drawer in my office filled with high heels and boots) or waits patiently while I change out of my heels and into my commuter shoes (wellies or lately, LL Bean boots) before we leave the office for happy hour.  He is perpetually mystified and amazed by my shoe collection and daily swapping until I remind him (again) that when you take public transportation in the city, you rarely  - if ever - wear your proper shoes traveling to and from.   We are not in Ohio, I remind him, where women can park their cars and walk directly into the office with their intended high heels of the day already on their feet.

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When I visit my parents and we run errands together I am sometimes taken aback by how easy these errands, something that would normally take all day if I attempted to do them in the city, become in their respective towns.  We park without fuss, we shop without issue, we pull into a driveway with ease, unload the car at our leisure.  Employees are, for the most part, pleasant and helpful at each store we stop, with each errand we run.

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I have grown adverse to dealing with laundromats.  Instead, I let my laundry pile up until I am near a privately owned washer and dryer, commandeering a friend's or family member's machine for load after load after load until all is clean and folded and ready to be carried back up three flights of stairs and gradually put away until the next laundry day - likely three or so months in the future.  All because I do not have my own washer and dryer, nor is there one within my apartment building.

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With the exception of summers in between my college years, I have lived in various cities for all of my adult life.  And oh, thank God for that.

This is not to say I don't love the country, don't appreciate - and at times desperately crave - the quiet, the calm, the peacefulness that one can only find when the the hustle and the bustle quiets, the traffic eases, and the city lights fade in the distance.  I grew up in the middle of the Pine Barrens, the nearest grocery store a good twenty minutes away from our house.  This summer camp counselor, 4-H member, horseback riding and loving girl can do country.  I will not argue that sometimes there is nothing better than just getting away, sometimes the only cure for when I reach an abnormally high level of stress and anxiety is to literally head for the hills.  I know this, I fully admit it.  City living is a challenge.  It can be exhausting and frustrating.  On bad days it can be a downright royal pain in the ass.  It is easy to become immune to outrageous costs of living in an urban area, with high rents and pricey meals and expensive grocery stores that, when one is exposed to long enough, don't seem high or pricey or unreasonable.  There are public transportation woes and crazy people yelling at you on occasion and people, so. many. people. all. of. the. time.  Cities can be lonely and cold and depressing; I've felt those emotions plenty of times in all of my years as an urban girl.

But damn if I don't love it - the good, the bad, the ugly, the crazy, and the beautiful melting pot that is a city down to my very core.

Perhaps someday I'll sing a different tune if I have babies that I'm schlepping around the city and strollers to push and daycare to get to.  Maybe one day in some future I cannot foresee I will crave a big new house tucked into a subdivision. (Highly unlikely). 

The other night I was taking the T home after work.  I'd finished the book I'd been reading a few stops earlier so instead of my normal distraction of a book during my commute time, I just sat among my other city dwellers, people watching.  I began thinking back to how much I loved the day trips my Mother would take my brother and I on when we were kids, how exciting it was to drive into the Holland Tunnel only to suddenly emerge minutes later in lower Manhattan, a whole new churning and pulsing world.  Or how much I adored nights when we would drive into Philadelphia for a play - such a treat on a school night! - how awed and inspired I always was just walking the handful of city blocks between the parking lot and Walnut Street theater.

Cities have simply always captivated me - how they work and function, how so many people coexist in relatively small spaces.  I can't imagine that I will ever tire of them, of their nature.  They amaze me - these large, living metropolises, for all that they offer and give and shape and change.  They evolve and they breath, together.  All the millions of us, going somewhere, headed there together, as city dwellers.