Life In The City
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Downtown Blues
The other day I had an errand to run downtown. I haven't traveled there much over the years. I mainly stick to Century City, Santa Monica, and occasionally The Valley. I have heard much on TV about the re-vitalization of downtown, but I was hard pressed to see it during my latest visit. I was only there for a short time yesterday, but while I was there I saw people who are poor, homeless, miserable, and without hope.
One man in particular caught my attention. He had what appeared to be an assortment of his personal belongings lined up on the sidewalk, as sort of a garage sale, but without the garage. While I am sure most of the things he had for sale meant a great deal to him in terms of sentimental value, they didn't have a lot of monetary worth. He had a few DVD's available, and at first I thought perhaps he had some recent theatrical releases, the illegal kind Jack Valenti would have sent his stormtroopers after, in his heyday. However, they were just a few run-of-the-mill videostore titles from the late 1990's, the sort of thing you could have found in the one-dollar bins at Blockbuster or the late great Hollywood Video. I felt bad for the man with the sidewalk sale going on, because I knew the odds of anyone buying those particular movies were between slim and none, and slim left town.
There is a lot of talk in the news these days about the economy, and about how it is improving. It may be. I have to say, however, that I see little evidence of it on the streets.
Labels: Travel
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Her Pilgrim Soul
I was riding the bus from Santa Monica one day, and I met a woman. She was getting old, but she was strikingly beautiful. While her hair had turned gray, she had it attractively styled. She wore clothes a younger woman would have chosen, and wore them with style. The only thing that really made her seem old though, was she had a hard look to her face. I saw her read a book, and when she got to a passage that caused her to look at it with disdain, it made her seem even harder. I so much wanted to ask her questions. What happened to you? I wanted to ask. What made you hard. So hard. Did someone break your heart? Was it shattered into so many pieces, the only way you could put it back together was to turn it into stone? I wanted to ask. But then I remembered a poem, and one passage of that in particular, and I suddenly appreciated her beauty at this time of her life. In this stage of her life. I realized that even though she had lost some of the joy of youth, she still had a beauty of spirit that even her hardness couldn't hide. And in the end, I decided not to ask her any questions. I had reached my stop.
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face--
W.B. Yeats
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face--
W.B. Yeats
Labels: Travel
