This neighborhood (ie my neighborhood) in which I live, is on the
outskirts of a town where the city's jurisdiction abuts
agricultural county land (that's why we call it
"ag" land here). It's a mix of housing (some
affordable for workers, some not so affordable), two small grocery
stores, one or two tiny nondescript office buildings, a coin
laundromat, streets (and side streets of course), and then there
are the vineyards amid
Napa Valley's
Coombsville appellation. It's an area I know so well. Yet it's only
recently I realized I only know it so well if I'm in the
driver's seat
of my car.
To be sure, I am very familiar with it as I
drive
in and out of it, to and from my home. Yet it's only recently I've
begun to realize, given it's fifteen years I've lived here, how
little exploring I've done on foot at ground level, gazing around,
taking it in, experiencing the native
spirit*
directly.
The stay-home has changed all that. It's
decisively
demanded opportunities to explore the area, to
walk
about and get to know its cul-de-sacs and shortcuts, to look into
windows,
homes and
gardens,
and to realize real people with real lives and real concerns live
here. Doing so makes me realize how much of a stranger ie how much
of a fly-by-night I've become, especially in my own
neighborhood, and consequently how elusively it has reciprocated. In
the stay-home, much of my natural
access
to movement has become restricted. By that I mean even the simplest
movements required to get out and about doing basic errands in the
village in normal times, have become restricted. At first I
complained.
And then I heard the stay-home urging "Get out.
Hike.
Explore.".
So I added additional mandatory physical activities to my daily
regimen including
yoga,
walking,
running,
and
hiking,
all while my car stayed parked under the carport gathering dust.
It's not just the essential exercises that are bountiful. It's that
getting out not by car, brings me closer to the real land and the
real people who live real lives right under my very real nose in
this very real neighborhood, many of whom I've never met or even
known about until now, whom I haven't even seen until now, the
first time in fifteen years. "That's strange, that's
very strange" I muse as its impact slowly sinks in,
"Why has this taken so long? Why does it take a stay-home?".
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