The Unfamiliar

When I take my dog for a walk here in the city, she goes wild. There's so much for her to sniff, she doesn't know where to start. I can relate. Living in the city keeps you alive, sometimes on the edge of your seat, with excitement about all the new things you're experiencing.

It doesn't matter how many times I walk down the streets, I always see something new. And whenever I see something new, it makes me use my brain. This is supposed to be good for you, especially for those who are getting older, like I am. My thoughts are always whirling as I try to fit the things I see into the worldview I already have.

When you live in the city, you are confronted with a myriad of things that you wouldn't be anywhere else. So many other places to live might are homogeneous in their population, their architecture, even their landscapes. The city is a veritable palette of people, structures and environments. I have had raccoons in the eaves of my roof, under the soffits, woodchucks and oppossums in my backyard and even seen deer crossing the railroad bridge. (Fortunately, I haven't seen too many rats.) And that's not even counting the birds. I'm not crazy about pigeons, especially when they, too, were nesting in our eaves, but bird song is everywhere, especially on a quiet morning in our big tree.

There are neighborhood parks, houses with carefully landscaped slopes and tiny courtyards, all manner of trees lining the city streets, and huge planters on the sidewalks filled with colorful foliage and flowers. Some of these things stay the same (except for growing), but there is always some kind of renovation going on as you walk through the neighborhoods. Not just of yards, but also of buildings: this one is being painted, this one gutted and rehabbed, this one torn down and another built in its place.

And the unfamiliar doesn't end there. It's fascinating to stroll through the business districts and discover what new shops have opened up or what new wares the old ones are displaying. There's always something new to look at, to sample, to experience.

And then there are the truly unfamiliar: the people. Most of those around you in the city are strangers. You may know some of the neighbors on your street (I know four), and you may recognize some regulars (people you pass on the street, or who pass by your house everyday, shoppers in the local stores), but the vast majority of people you encounter are likely to be people you don't and never will know. This always puts you in an interesting situation. Will they say hello? Should you? What do you think you can tell by the way that they dress or walk or talk? (You're most probably wrong.) I have said hi to the toughest-looking young men I pass briefly on the street and received a gentle hello in return. I've had sweet-looking high-school girls yell at me for having my dog outside. I've seen men pushing baby strollers and escorting their children to school. I've met people who are starting businesses who proudly show your their business cards. I've been approached by people I thought were beggars who just wanted a light. I've exchanged small talk with people at the bus stop.

Don't get me wrong: I've also had downright unpleasant experiences, or things that are so weird I can't wrap my mind around them. Or at least I couldn't at first. Like the man with long dreadlocks who would stride down the nearby streets every day as if in a hurry, all decked out as a woman. Or the terribly skinny and raw-faced white woman who panhandles on the street (she's always looking for bus fare) with two biracial toddlers and a baby in tow. Or the con-women that come to the door claining that they're collecting money for a woman's charity one time, and for something else the next. (And if you give them money once, they keep coming back, regular as clockwork until you finally stop.) Or the mugging that took place two blocks away in broad daylight, where the perpetrators ran away and were caught by the police, but the person who had been mugged was afraid to press charges because he lives in this neighborhood and he was afraid of retaliation.

But the more I'm around the unfamiliar, the more it becomes familiar, until I find myself missing the man/woman when he stopped appearing in the neighborhood, or the old man who always tipped his hat and proudly told me about his computer business, or the little kids who used to come around and offer to help me with things in exchange for money. Not everything is understandable or comfortable, but it's the unknown that keeps us searching for answers to life's most interesting questions.