Monday, January 03, 2005 History World
It turns out that everyone I've ever known still lives in Richmond, or at least they all came home for the holidays. Also, they all kept in touch. They know each other's cat's names, travel to see each other in whatever locations they've moved to if they haven't stayed rooted in place, and they've all dated each other.
Walking around certain neighborhoods is like a themepark of the past. I'm really pretty self-absorbed, and I'm kind of shocked that people's lives have continued without me. Still, it's weird as hell to just be out and around and be like, "Oh, it's that guy, and the child he created with his own germ plasm, who is now a toddler," or "There's so-and-so from my 9th grade creative writing class, and there's her giant wedding ring and her husband."
On New Year's Day, it was warm and sunny, and after everyone was bored with being spat upon by animals, we went down to the river. The James river runs through the center of Richmond, and most of it's banks are part of the city park system. The friends I was with and I walked out to Belle Isle, an island in the middle of the James where the teenagers go to smoke drugs and the regular people go to walk dogs and mountain bike and drag cranky children around.
It seemed like half the city was there, and everyone brought their dogs. I saw two dogs wrestle over one stick. It wasn't bad. There was Hollywood Cemetary up on the hill across the river on the north side, and all the dumb-ass condos someone put up over a field I used to like in the neighborhood where I went to highschool for a while, and birds and trees and the sounds of the rapids.
I got a little bit nostalgic, even though getting out of Richmond was the only dream I've ever followed with enough persistence and heart to make it work. On the other hand, eff that town. It's cool and fun not to be there. posted by Frenz | 1/03/2005 07:11:00 PM
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