Walter Crane: The strangers entertained (1910)

"Avoiding traffic became my occupation …"

I recently had a conversation with one of The Muse’s fellow Port Commissioners. He reported that he had been worrying about an impending move. He and his wife had bought a condo in town into which they would soon relocate. He explained that when he first married, he’d moved out of his parent’s place on the farm and into what had been his grandparent’s house next door. He’d lived there until ten years ago when he built his present house three miles from where he was raised. This condo would be the furthest he’d ever lived from his home place. It was ten miles away, in town. He said he’d never been away for longer than two weeks in his whole life, and he was wondering what might become of him if he couldn’t look up to see the familiar hills or predict the weather by checking what the clouds were doing. He seemed to have been scared of becoming a Stranger. I knew too well how he felt.

Once the movers left, I realized I could no longer consider myself a visitor. Like the character Just Visiting Jail in the Monopoly game, I had been able up until then to consider myself as just visiting the region. After all, we still lived in "temporary" housing then, and our possessions had not yet caught up with us. Once that illusion collapsed, once we'd moved into a house and taken possession of all our familiar stuff, I became a Stranger. I finally had a fixed address again, but almost nobody on the street knew even the first thing about me. They could see me coming and going, knowing I was probably of no consequence to them. Further, The Muse, Grand Otter, and I dropped into an ongoing story, one in no way dependent upon our presence. We were, at best, irrelevant.

I felt a Stranger almost at that very moment when the movers drove away. We had been dependent upon The Muse's employer, but no longer. Now, we'd have to become self-sufficient. We weren't completely alone. Our benefactor Clair was near and grateful to have us there. He invented reasons to stop in to see if he could help us with anything. The Muse returned to work while The Otter and I set about unpacking. I shelved my books. The Otter was entering the age where she needed to feel independent, so she was generally uninterested in running errands with me. This left me flying solo, something I do not like to do. I would have been one lousy frontiersman. I feel too self-conscious when entering any place for the first time. Always an introvert, I became shy. I'd bravely head out somewhere only to turn around and return home before arriving after getting all tangled up in my underwear about making a proper entry. The Otter and I became homebodies.

I relearned how unreliable the internet can be since nobody seems to feel any need to take down their website after they go out of business. Further, there were rules. In Maryland—and Takoma Park is in Maryland—one must go to a "package" store to buy wine or beer. No liquor stores are allowed in Takoma Park, formerly the home of the Adventist church headquarters. In DC and Virginia, wine and beer appear in grocery stores, but liquor can only be purchased at "package" and standalone liquor stores. Shopping became complicated. Further, supermarkets varied their stock by neighborhood, with stores in traditionally more African-American neighborhoods stocking very different produce than those in more gentrified areas. Shopping required more stops than it had "back home." With back home as my baseline, many things seemed odd, leaving me feeling even more the Stranger.

About a week before we moved into Takoma Park, a horrible accident happened on the Metro line between downtown and Takoma. A train rear-ended a stalled train, killing a conductor. This left a pall over what had previously been a liberating feature of living there. I dropped The Muse off at the Metro station every morning, knowing she would ride into danger on her way to work. At day's end, I waited anxiously for her to text or call to report that her train was at the Ft. Totten station, the one before Takoma. I'd rush over to meet her with the car, and we would retreat to our hovel. I'd have supper ready by then and we'd share stories of our adventures, such as they were. They tended to be modest excursions in the early days because I felt intimidated by the place. It was easier to stay home and unpack.

I had never aspired to live in a big city, though I'd lived in one for most of my adult life. Portland, Oregon, though, where I'd lived for nearly thirty years, never seemed all that huge. It was a collection of reasonably insular neighborhoods, and I coped with its size by never going into most of it. Early on, I cordoned off places I didn't want to know, so I lived in a town about the size of my hometown, the balance utterly irrelevant to me. I had not yet successfully cordoned off DC into a similar scale, so it still felt massive and intimidating in the earliest days. I had a whole new collection of SecretPassages to learn, effective ways to go around the bulk of the traffic. Whenever I got tangled in a traffic jam, I felt myself a Stranger again. I kept telling myself that someone more clued in would have successfully avoided the tangle. Avoiding traffic became my occupation then. I'd force myself to go a different way every time, hoping to stumble upon some improvement. Eventually, I did.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz