Saturday, April 9, 2011

Claustrophobia

It's not that I wish to be ungrateful. I suppose nobody 'wishes' to be ungrateful. I know I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. We've got a mountain on one side and the ocean on the other and vineyards just over there and, oh wait, some more ocean yonder and then... more mountains. I can't deny it, it's gorgeous. But it's the city.

Between that mountain and that sea are claustrophobic house after house after flat block all cut through with two-lane, three-lane, four-lane roads filled with shiny cars pushingandshovingandrushing places. From one big building with reflecting windows (the mountain showing itself again, in reverse) to the next, filled with glitzy shops and the sound of tills guzzling money for useless things that are pretty. While there, below the bridge, people sit on stained matresses, eat tossed-out leftover chips and watch those shiny cars filled with useless but pretty stuff pass, pushingandshovingandrushing places.

Oh yes, I know those people are in Small Towns too, some worse off than those below the bridge. It's just that there, over there, the four-lane highway doesn't exist, the lady at the guzzling till knows your name and when you step out of the shop, still with some useless but pretty stuff, there is air. And it just seems that, with that amount of air, and not too much pushingandshovingandrushing places there may be a little more time to care.

Claustrophobic, me?

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