Last week I found out I was going to have to work in Atlanta every day, so I called my brother to see if I could crash at their place. I discovered, much to my delight, they were going on vacation for a week and would love it if I would watch their house for them.
Now, I’m a country girl 300%. There’s nothing I love more than foraging through the woods and wandering amongst the cattle. But I’ve also lived in cities and loved the vibrant and varied life that I found there. So when I discovered I was going to be staying in Midtown (within walking distance from the Fox Theater) I was pretty excited.
Although I had worked all day, it had been pretty low impact (sitting in chairs and asking questions about hemophilia) so I was looking forward to exploring my temporary neighborhood. On my way there, I noticed there was a Publix on the corner. The green sign shone like a beacon, promising various and sundry things to eat for supper. I drove past and made my way to my brother’s place, parked and took the elevator up to the fourth floor. I changed out of my monkey suit (business casual) and into some exercise togs. Grabbing a reusable shopping bag (no self-respecting Midtown dweller would carry groceries in a plastic bag), I bounded down the stairs and out into the swirling city.
First thing I noticed? Lots of people wear sunglasses in the city – probably for security reasons, like tint on car windows. The second thing I noticed was music. Before I even left the building, I heard someone in apartment #1 playing gospel piano. Drifting down the stairs from an apartment above, I could hear someone practicing trumpet. The noise was far away, almost like a call to a fox hunt. Walking to the grocery store, I passed a sidewalk café where a flamenco guitarist flourished and fluttered through impossibly complex scales, filling the air with the sounds of Andalusia. Although I was tempted to tarry, a girl alone in the big city knows it’s best to keep moving.
I made it to the grocery store and foraged around, finding favorite foods – sushi, kale salad and golden cherries. I paid the cashier, tucked my billfold back into my bra safe (you can’t be too careful) and headed back up the hill to the apartment building. By some miracle, I remembered all the door codes and headed back up four flights of stairs. I was a little winded by the time I got to the top.
It had started to rain so I opened up a window and let the noises of the city trickle in. Cars whispered by, their tires shhhhushing on the wet pavement. Smoke rose from the tops of restaurants, frothy pink crepe myrtles bobbed their heads in the downpour and slab-gray marble from the building down the street shone brightly, wet with rain. Suddenly, I found myself transported back to the Paris of my youth, in my garret apartment, watching that famous city swirl below me.
It rained a lot when I lived in Paris. It was in the fall, the rainy season there. Paris and Atlanta had things in common. Both were filled with dog walkers (in Paris, their humans didn’t clean up after them, resulting in a plague of “sidewalk pate” that required constant vigilance). Both cities were filled with panhandlers, trying every possible angle to get money. Earlier in the evening, when I was driving through Atlanta, I’d seen a homeless man on the corner. He was the color of charcoal – his hair, his clothes, his skin. His gray rain poncho was tattered, like feathers. His beard was braided and jutting and he raved on the corner like St. John the Baptist.
Later in the evening, from the safety of the fourth floor window, I looked out into the rain. It was like watching a saltwater aquarium. A few hard-core joggers ran by, their clothes soaked and clinging like wet dishrags. A girl with a coral-colored umbrella teetered along in four-inch heels. A gym-rat in a sleeveless shirt carried his groceries home with his shoes shining like neon fish against the wet sidewalk.
While I looked out the window, I ate my supper. The sushi was fresh and the kale salad was crispy. The cherries were delicious, as you might imagine, but I discovered that it’s not a great idea for a person who lives alone to eat pitted cherries while reclined in “Queen of Sheba” style. The first few were fine, but when the stone of the third one threatened to go down the wrong way, I sat up as fast as a scalded cat, coughing my way back to safety.
As night fell, I stayed at the window. Headlights smeared and glowed up the road. Streetlights bounced orange off the water. The sidewalk began to empty, except for the homeless people who had no place to go. I sat and watched for what seemed like hours until from upstairs the trumpet began to play again – this time scales. The sound mingled with the honking horns below. It was a song of the city.