Am I a Tourist? Are you?

(Day two of my self-imposed writing project)

Ezra wondered when people stop being tourists and become inhabitants. When could a city be claimed, or a town, or a country for that matter, as a home instead of a destination? Or if the place you live is stereotypically tourist destination, are you still a tourist for visiting parts of the city? And if your place is not a typical destination, does it still count as tourism if you visit a place you haven’t seen in your town or borough yet, just to see it?

He thought these things to himself while squirming through the mass of people cramming the popular Millennium Park in downtown Chicago. A sunny August day should had prepared Ezra for the sweating and undulating crowd of parents and kids, backpackers and elderly couples vying for walking space on the packed sidewalks. Looking around Ezra caught the frustrated eyes of the natives. The purposeful gait of those used to the bustle of the city was truncated by the masses. Frustrated eyes looked for pockets to dash through. Their gazes were directed forward, not up and around. Ezra felt a kinship with them, but frowned and wondered why he should.

I haven’t moved here yet. I’ve visited plenty, but that doesn’t make me a native. Is there some hard and fast point at which I stop being a visitor and become something more permanent? He escaped the crowd by dashing down the stairs into the underground pedestrian walkway. A few minutes later he arrived at a subway station. Musing on the train home he watched the city pass by.

“At what point does a tourist become a local?” Ezra asked Mary, his girlfriend of a year. Mary was seated cross-legged on the giant beanbag she had found on Craig’s List. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Looking up from her laptop, dark brown eyes met Ezra’s gray.

“When you stop going to all the touristy places, I guess, “she said.  “Why do you ask?”

“I was wandering around downtown today—“

“—That being your first mistake—“

“Haha. I mean, I was wandering around and I’m getting really comfortable here, you know? I feel really at home in the city, getting from place to place, finding my own way around, not relying on cabs or maps. I know which train lines to take where and when they stop running. But I don’t have an apartment here. I’m still a visitor.”

Mary set her laptop on the low table next to her. Her apartment was furnished with lower than average furniture. An older building (advertised as ‘vintage’ by the leasing company) with high ceiling and peeling white molding, it looked on the inside like a fight between two interior decorators. One preferred Asian inspired furniture and posters, screen-printings and low wooden furniture, chopsticks and rice bowls with blue patterns. The other decorator had done a lot of acid in the 70s and some part of the brain remained there. Beanbag chairs, plastic houseplants, a garish shag carpet rug festooned the living room. A large stained glass peace sign hung in the bay window.

Mary herself as a mix of styles, through currently one of Ezra’s college fencing shirts covered her slight frame. A pair of her old Taekwondo uniform pants covered her lithe legs. She was in better shape than Ezra and playfully reminded him of the fact when they went running together.

She paused before answering, “you come here to see me, in part. Or so I hope.” She winked at him. Long distance relationships were difficult, but they had managed this one well. They both agreed, Skype was a beautiful piece of software. “Plus, your family lives less than an hour from here. You’ve been visiting here for years, since you were young right?”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Ezra shifted in his seat, staring back down at the bottle of beer in his hands, “I mean I saw all these tourists today. Legitimately, easy to spot tourists. Camera phones, guidebooks, maps, waddling in packs, the whole thing. And I got mad at them. Angry! Like, morally offended that they would pack into MY city.”

“Your city? And they’re allowed to visit, you know. The tourism sector brings a lot of money into Chicago.”

“I’m aware, I know. I mean, I felt in that moment like one of the locals, less of an outsider, or a visitor. It was like when I was in Scotland—“

“—Really? Back to Scotland again?” she teased.

“In this case yes! I was there only two months. Just two. Not long enough to learn the culture, to know a great deal of the history (though I feel like the only one who read all of our reading before the trip, How the Scots Invented the Modern World), but long enough so that when I went back to Edinburgh the third or fourth time I was sort of annoyed with all the Americans milling about on the Royal Mile instead of wandering into the less touristy areas of the city. It’s a beautiful city!”

“As you keep saying.”

“Yes, sorry, just, well, and in Dundee the urgency of vacation wore off the second week we were there. Classes, fencing practice with the local team, buying groceries, finding our favorite local pubs, it became very mundane, even though we were four thousand miles from home. I guess it surprised me how quickly all that became normal.”

“Do you think your anger with tourists might have something more to do with you rather than an actual hard and fast definition of tourist versus visitor? They’re allowed to visit the city and share these spaces as well. They find something awe inspiring in those sights, or something interesting there that you may overlook becomes you’ve grown used to them? Maybe you’re jealous.”

“True,” Ezra said, “I hadn’t considered it that way, and I haven’t spoken with enough people to know. Maybe I should, I’d be curious to know.”

“It might be like a sliding scale,” Mary offered, “certain qualifications might make you one or the other. It’s easy to spot the extremes:  the tourist with the camera against the local. It’s harder to peg you, someone who is comfortable in the space but doesn’t officially live there. Or when you were in Scotland. You had a space, you had an address, but you were temporary.”

“That’s true, but what if it’s like this:  like you, a local has been somewhere for years, but still explores their surroundings. In some ways we’re always finding new places, being surprised by what is hidden in a city or a space. Maybe in some ways we will always have a bit of tourist in us,” Ezra took a sip of beer, then stood up to cross the room. He motioned for Mary to make some room. They squished against each other in the giant beanbag, quietly sitting for a moment.

Mary pinched him; “I think someone has thought of that notion already.”

“Yeah,” Ezra said, “They probably have.”

Writing for a Month - The Beginning

The Burwood Tap, Lincoln Park

Forgive this post. It’s going to be somewhat “I” heavy. I will endeavor to keep more posts from being so, shall we say “me”, for the next month. But all projects have to start with a purpose, so here is mine.

For the first time in a long time I find myself with free time. I don’t mean free time in the “I have a few hours this evening to play the Homestead missions of Assassin’s Creed 3” free time, but rather the “work doesn’t start till mid-September and it is currently early August” kind of free time. I suppose I shouldn’t complain, but it’s not like I have infinite funds and can go gallivanting off across the US on a journey of self discovery (I did that two years ago, except to Scotland, plus I’m far more aware of myself now than I was then) or that much space to work in (can’t move into the new apartment till Sept 1^st).

So what to do?

I’ll be splitting time between Chicago and northwest Indiana. I think some evenings will be spent wandering the dunes on the southern tip of Lake Michigan. Perhaps I’ll take up train running again in and around the hills back from the lake.

All that aside, I think I’ll at least write.

I’ve fallen out of the habit of this. The blog I wanted to keep hasn’t been updated in quite some time. The stories I’ve planned in my head remain unwritten. I have not given them the time or the attention that I’ve used elsewhere. Most of my days have been spent writing for various projects, something the last thing I want to do is write more.

But now I have time. I’d like to use it constructively (once I finish Dragon Age).

Goals for this project? Let’s say something like this:

·      Blog posts 3 times a week, various topics

·      Specific topic:  Philosophy of Family

·      Reflection on Huxley’s Brave New World and Island

·      3 or so short stories

·      A farewell piece about Ann Arbor

I think that will keep me busy enough. I once suggested this route to a friend of mine to cope with not being busy. Taking my own advice shouldn’t be too hard, right?

I was thinking all this while wandering the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. It’s all the things that drew me (back) to Chicago:  old homes, people out and walking, green tree lined streets, sounds of traffic, bird calls, parks filled with people and their pets,  neighborhood bars tucked away from busy main streets, and the steady thrum of life and living. Taking a short train ride brings the downtown awash in suits, tourists, traffic, and towering buildings. In a few weeks I’ll be moving into an old style apartment with high ceilings, old moldings, hardwood floors (dance party, anyone?), and a big bay window. Along with these comes the next chapter, something new and challenging.

Come visit me. I can promise good bourbon.

Dancing in Public

I'm going to deviate from my original schedule to do a short post about dancing in a public setting. 

I'd like to jump off from Ruby Red's wonderful blog post On Dance Culture: Separate But Equal regarding dancing in public. The author reflects on an experience listening and dancing to music in public as well as the "mental constructs" that keep us from participating in that movement (by us I don't necessarily mean swing-dancers us, us as in the general public). Even as 'trained' dancers, we may feel a hesitancy to dance in public because it is somehow not appropriate or downright strange, and we would rather not be the weirdos in the room.

I think many of us dancers have had similar experiences. Either at weddings (well, non-dancer weddings), night clubs, or just out and about hearing street performances sometimes a pressure is felt to step back and listen rather than dance. Being able to engage the music as a dancer, again to quote Ruby Red, is seen as a special talent or skill set, something we have developed. Occasionally we receive comments about how after we danced, no one wants to follow us for fear of looking bad or uncoordinated (especially guys hoping to impress dates. But this happens in swing, too. Think going into a jam circle after instructors have just tore the floor up). We don't want to deter others from dancing.

Luckily, I have reasons to hope these norms may change.

Recently, my friends and I have started going to MASH, a beer and bourbon bar. Thursday through Saturday nights the bar advertises live music, particularly blues influenced bands as well as rockabilly and occasionally more 50s style rock n' roll. We love the speakeasy style setting (and the bourbon selection is quite good) of the place and the music is a good excuse to attend.

We have a 'rule' about dancing in public to bands which have not seen dancers before. We let the band have three or four songs where we will listen, gage dance-ability, and then if we think we can get away with it we will dance. So far, all the reactions have been positive. Bands have advertised their playing to us, asking us to come back.

Moreover, our last couple times dancing other people we don't know (I hesitate to call them non-dancers,  I think that's unfair. We'll say non-swing-educated in this sense) will get up and dance with us. Last night while the Canastas were playing four or five couples were packing the ten by 7 foot floor space at a time (a tight squeeze). While this sounds like a small number compared to dance events swing dancers tend to go to, for this space it was full. The energy was really high and the band fed off of it. They told us as much, saying they liked extending the songs and seeing what choices could get more people moving.

The takeaway:  while the social normalcy of 'formal dancing' (say lessons in ballroom styles, latin, and swing) may be rare, people are willing to get up and dance will little to no training despite 'educated' swing dancers taking the floor before them. I'm sure this isn't an isolated occurrence.

As dancers wanting to make dancing to live music, any time and anywhere, a far more normal occurrence, we should embrace these chances to share what we do and encourage others to join us. We may dislike losing the floor for a night to those who have no idea what floor craft is, but they are far braver in a way than we are. They have only a vague idea of what the music is saying to them, how to move, what happens next, etc.

But they stand up and dance anyway.

Usually sober.

To reward you for sitting through this, here is a picture of an annoyed owl.

Travel: It's What I Do

I'd like to start with an attunement, a thought by Alain de Botton from his book The Art of Travel. I love this quote. It reflects associations I have with travel and growth.

“Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. There is an almost quaint correlation between what is in front of our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads: large thoughts at times requiring large views, new thoughts new places. Introspective reflections which are liable to stall are helped along by the flow of the landscape. The mind may be reluctant to think properly when thinking is all it is supposed to do.

At the end of hours of train-dreaming, we may feel we have been returned to ourselves - that is, brought back into contact with emotions and ideas of importance to us. It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insists that we cannot change because it does not; the domestice setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, but who may not be who we essentially are."


I wondered while in Scotland why I felt so at home so far from home. On trains, planes, and automobiles we can find a stillness or inspiration that may elude us normally. 'Home' surrounds us with familiarity. The mundane isn't so much damaging to thought as it lures us into forgetting where we are can by dynamic and full if we make it so.

I often get this feeling (is there a word for it?) of discomfort when I come home from a particularly amazing or long trip. I feel as if I have changed, or would have liked to have changed, in some manner. But exhausted, dragging in my suitcase and bedroll, I find the sheets on my bed were as I left them. The books remain alphabetized on the shelves. My posters and CDs, the same. My surroundings hadn't changed, neither had my city (even new to this town, we get used to new things so quickly). Going back to a city I lived in before college is a weird experience because--to me--so much time has past and the city should be different. I don't know how, but it SHOULD be changed, much like me (however small that change may be). Of course, our surroundings do not change to suit our immediate desires or internal states.

Even so, coming home often conflicts with my perceptions. Lindy Focus (a week long swing dance camp in North Carolina) was something so far outside of the ordinary, but I adjusted by the end of it. The trip only lasted a week, which is a short considering I lived abroad for two months, but it was a very full week of different experiences. I lived, breathed, and ate dancing practically 24 hours a day. Between classes, lessons, panel discussions, electives, and the evening dances I'm sure we were engaged 8-16 hours a day or more. Coming home itself became and adjustment again. Maybe that's the conflict. Coming home shouldn't be a conflict, but it is to some extent, because home at least feels so normal. And in my new experiences, normal becomes in some sense abnormal.

And so, even given those discomforts, I love traveling because it keeps me engaged in a particular way.  I'm sure one day I will have to find a medium for that feeling closer to home, but for now dancing nearly every weekend in another city is a great excuse.

Ok, that was today's philosophical exercise (see my last post for the background). Next week look forward to two topics:  Change and Work.

Ready? Here is a fun picture of a restaurant in Philadelphia.

And So We Survive Another Revolution of this Hunk of Rock Around It's Life, and Eventually Death, Giving Star

Okay, here we are:

2013. The big Two Zero One Three. And the world is still here. I guess I should prepare to pay taxes.

It's a new year, so time for a recap? A thoughtful post about all the change and growth of an individual adrift in a sea of change and uncertainty? Maybe, it is rather cliche, but also fitting.

Working as a writer I feel like I don't have any time or desire to update this thing (which is odd, does that make me a bad writer?). Between my two jobs, hobbies, traveling, and side projects I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and do the pseudo-philosophical writing I had promised myself to do, and honestly the kind I like (see everything I ever wrote regarding Alain de Botton).

So as something-like-but-not-entirely a New Year's resolution I'll try to do three weeks of 6 updates on various themes:

1. Traveling
2. Change
3. Work
4. Teaching
5. Dancing
6. Friends and Relationships

Tomorrow I'll post my thoughts on traveling, a brief version of which I've shared with a friend from Scotland. I've managed to do a good bit of that in the last year, and there will be a lot of more of that coming in the next four months (Chicago, Denver, Washington DC, Lafayette, Oberlin, Columbus, Cleveland, Dayton, Pittsburgh, Grand Rapids). It's all for dancing, something which is rapidly becoming the number one thing I do (sorry fencing, the upcoming practice schedule is going to make it hard to see you).  

Pittsburgh during Pittstop 2012

To round this out, above is a picture of Pittsburgh I took during an exchange weekend.