I think I know what I look for in a city

I travel. I do it not for fun most of the time, though my traveling turns out to be fun, but usually for work. If I travel for fun, it's a road trip with the tribe, a camping trip, a bike-race trip, anything that I can do in a car. I love traveling, I hate the process of getting there. Kind of counter-intuitive, isn't it? I guess I'm high maintenance that way. 

I was talking to a few colleagues today, or yesterday, or the day before, I forget, and mentioned that I wasn't really that big on Boston the first time I went but the next few times it got better and better. Usually when I get to a city for the first time I either immediately love it or I immediately am non-committal.  I think I imagine myself living in a city the first 5 minutes I'm there. I look for small things - how quickly do taxis notice my hand up, how swiftly are the pedestrians moving through a crosswalk or how smoothly are they flowing down the sidewalk? Is there enough commerce in a particular city to support my lifestyle if I chose to move there? Is there enough access to outdoor activities to support that part of my lifestyle? Is there enough anonymity?

There it is, that's the one. Anonymity. Is there the opportunity to be somewhere where I won't run into someone that a) I know or b) knows someone who knows me?  I dunno why I like the possibility of blending into the white-noise, the background, so much. I think it's the voyeur in me, or the want to observe. I always hoped to be the next great American author, the next J.D. Salinger or the next John Cheever, which would require me to be a great, anonymous observer, but the truth is I love to people watch.

A common claim of mine is that if I could have one super power, and if I got to choose what that super power was to be, I'd choose invisibility. Think of the things I could write about if I could sit, unobserved, on some meetings you wish you were in on.  Think of those things.  

I think about them sometimes.

Comments

[alcurig]

I understand what you're saying about city anonymity. One of the reasons I love New York is because I seem to find great comfort in being surrounded by people while remaining virtually unnoticed and alone with my thoughts.