Two Cities, One Writer

After several years of staying at home, Wordplay has started venturing out into the world again. Last year, I dipped my toes in the water at the PCA/ACA conference in San Antonio. On Sunday, I returned home after attending this year’s PCA in Chicago and then taking the train to Seattle for my first vacation in 12 years. I used to love traveling, but like so many other things, it got to the point where it was no longer fun, around the time I was working on my dissertation (that is to say, 2010-2012). After that, I could no longer afford to travel, even if I had wanted to, and then it was COVID, and then it was settling into a new apartment with other priorities than spending money on trips, and then it was, honestly, a bit of inertia.

Last year, though, I started to shake off my dormancy and felt the travel bug beginning to bite. The San Antonio conference was both something I wanted to do for professional reasons and also a travel experiment. I wanted to find out what it’s like to travel post-pandemic and post- so many other things that have left their mark on us as individuals and as a society. Six days away from home would surely be tolerable, even if the conference didn’t go well. The conference was an experiment in itself, since my previous PCA experience had been a mixed one. The San Antonio conference was a little surreal, but positive enough overall that I surprised myself by deciding to go back this year, to PCA Chicago.

I had a couple of things going for me this time, which is that my budget wasn’t as bare bones as it was when I was last in Chicago for the PCA and also that I had some previous knowledge of the place. I could afford a splurge here and there. I had some things in mind that I wanted to do, restaurants I wanted to try. I could do some “fun” things and explore a little bit. And that’s what I did. 

I hit the ground running and got some sightseeing in even before checking into my hotel. I found a coffee spot I liked. I got a general sense of direction. Over the next several days, when I wasn’t in sessions at the conference, I sampled Chicago food, went on a couple of organized tours, and without really trying, starting getting the pulse of the place. I have to say, I enjoyed myself. With one or two exceptions, I felt that I was treated well. Chicago is a tough city, no question. But I went with an open mind and genuine wish to get to know a little of the place, and I feel that I did, at least a little. For the Chicagoans I encountered in restaurants and coffee shops, at the hotel and the train station, in the stores and out on the streets, I have nothing but respect. If you’re keeping your head above water in Chicago, that’s definitely saying something about you.

On the train going west, I cured my curiosity about what the upper Midwest and Plains states look like west of Minneapolis, the former limit to my experience. It looked like a lot of rolling fields, with occasional towns, patches of snow, some cows, and horses, until the train reached Glacier National Park and all hell broke loose with snow-capped peaks and deep forests all around. The drama subsided until the train traversed the Cascade Mountains in Washington, an even bigger extravaganza of gorgeous views. And so, at the end, Seattle, where I learned a great lesson about thinking you know where you’re going by observing street signs from a moving train. (It ended with me getting completely turned around after leaving the station, which wouldn’t have been a problem if I’d been planning to walk to Portland.)

Seattle is one of the last places I remembered having fun, on the other occasion I’d been there, in 2011. I was coming down from some pretty dramatic effects of PTSD but still had kind of a fearless attitude toward most situations (which I found to be a very refreshing way to approach life, BTW). This time, I wanted to see if Seattle still struck me the way it did then. Back then, it had a wonderful spirit of dynamic creativity, evident in abundant public art, bold architecture, cool neighborhoods, quirky shops, and the general feeling of ease I had in walking around, not to mention all the natural beauty that surrounds and supports it. I had heard that it, like most other places across America, has seen an increase in crime over the last few years. Evidently, some people dispute whether cities are actually more dangerous now than they were, say, 10 years ago, but a quick read of the newspaper, even in my city of Lexington, certainly gives the impression of a rather sharp increase in violent crime over what would have been considered “normal” 5-10 years ago.

I did find Seattle changed. There is a meanness one encounters here and there, on the streets and elsewhere, that seemed to be almost completely absent on my last visit. It’s true that I stayed in an Airbnb on my first visit, with a charming hostess who lived in an edgy but cool sort of post-industrial neighborhood on the outskirts, the kind of place the average tourist would leave town without ever knowing about. Its drawback was its remoteness, so I wanted to stay closer to the center of things this time. Once I got to Pike Place Market, I was able to find a cafe in which to regroup. But I was rather discouraged with the changes I could already sense on the streets. There was no need to travel to the other side of the country to sample incivility as I can find that here if I want to. I went to Seattle for something different.

Once I got to my hotel and settled in, I started to feel a little better, though that changed when I went out to dinner my first night in town. Although there were plenty of places I could have been seated, I was shown to a table with a high stool, so that I felt I was towering over everyone else. (Come on y’all, you know that a solo diner doesn’t want to be that conspicuous, surely.) I asked to move to a regular table after noticing that the place was half empty, and while the food was delicious, my enjoyment of the evening was rather spoiled.

I’m not sure I ever quite got over the feeling that civility in Seattle is not what it once was. The physical reality of the streets has also changed: they were dirtier and rougher than my memory of them, not only in downtown proper, but in Belltown, South Lake Union, and Capitol Hill. Admittedly, I was only in Capitol Hill for the Elliott Bay Book Company last time, when I walked up from downtown. I didn’t ramble around the neighborhood, as I did this time. In my memory, though, it was a thriving area, not as trash-strewn as it is in 2024. I wouldn’t call the neighborhood blighted, as there are plenty of cafes, shops, and nightspots, and the neighborhood is considered a hip destination for nightlife, but it did appear somewhat the worse for wear.

I would have thought that this is simply the result of an imperfect memory, except that some of the other places I went to seemed just as I remembered them. I was dismayed to see that the area on lower 2nd Avenue, in Belltown, did appear blighted, once I made my way there to visit a restaurant where I had dined on my first night in town in 2011. I almost turned around and went back as the street became visibly grittier and only continued because I had good memories of the restaurant and knew it was still there. I had a lovely meal there this time, too, but was sure I remembered a more prosperous neighborhood in the past. Of course, this isn’t that surprising: places change. It was sad, though.

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy myself in Seattle. I didn’t have a bad meal the entire time I was there, and most of the food was phenomenal. Likewise, the coffee. I got lost walking around and had to remind myself that getting lost sometimes leads to finding things you wouldn’t see otherwise. I estimate that I walked 35-40 miles while there. I didn’t find Seattle-ites to be snobby, as they’re sometimes reputed to be. There were friendly people (more of these), and uncivil people, and a pervasive feeling of Whatever Has Happened to the Rest of Our Country has happened to Seattle, too.

My best moments were spent either enjoying great food or great coffee, sometimes gazing out a window at a great view. I didn’t find the coffeehouse atmosphere I was really looking for until my last full day, when I discovered a cafe with an industrial-punk vibe that broadcast KEXP live. I will say this: I forgot for entire swaths of time that I was carrying an AARP card in my wallet. No one called me “ma’am.” The discovery that I could still climb Queen Anne Hill with the same amount of energy I had 13 years ago (and not once but twice) was gratifying. I was cautious about going out at night, but I wasn’t on the retired nuns tour of Seattle and didn’t want to leave town without experiencing a little nightlife, so I went to a bar in Lower Queen Anne one evening that served food and had an awesome tostada. Also, a Negroni, which I would describe as both sweet and bitter and definitely something I would try again.

If I had to sum up my impression of Seattle in 2024, I would say that it almost appeared like a city under siege of some kind. Its essence still shines through, but like other places I’ve been, it shows evidence of beleuguerment. Every place has its source of strength, though. For Chicago, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s the day-to-day struggle of surviving in a tough environment, amid all those huge buildings. For Seattle, it might be the spirit of the Native Americans who lived in the area before the arrival of the pioneers. I noticed signs in different places stating that the lands on which various modern buildings are standing have never been ceded by the indigenous Salish people. I think their presence still permeates everything in Seattle. When I think of my visit, it’s the sound of the gulls’ cries that makes the soundtrack, and I don’t think it’s that far a step from there to the anarchic energy of the music scene, to Jimi Hendrix and Nirvana and all the rest.

Wordplay's Tony Bennett Moment

Attentive readers of this blog may recall a post in which I compared San Francisco with New York and London and gave a sort of Jungian interpretation of the character of all three. (I was looking at New York from a distance only, as I've spent little time there.) What I said about San Francisco was that it was introverted and hard to know and that it felt claustrophobic. While I don't actually disagree with this assessment after spending a few days there earlier this week, I felt my old fondness for the city returning even before I got there.

My feelings are caught up in a persistent sadness hanging over my last couple of visits and the death of a friend who lived there. Nevertheless (and quite surprisingly to me), I found the old San Francisco magic starting to exert its influence in the soft air and misty dampness that emerged somewhere around Vallejo, unmistakable harbingers of the city. I had too many happy associations with visits past to be able to deny the anticipation this created, and it wasn't even destroyed by the yellow ticket I got for not having enough cash for the toll. (Here's a hint, though, to the bridge authority: credit cards--embrace them. I'm not sure why you remain seemingly alone in taking cash only. I thought even Popsicle stands took credit cards these days.)

I had been in touch with an old friend before arriving but had no place to stay on my first night. I made my way through construction- and pedestrian-clogged downtown streets out to the avenues, where I managed to find a parking spot and a Starbucks where I could plug in and investigate the possibility of hostels and tourist hotels. I found a number of places, some with suspiciously low prices (if they were genuine) and was also considering 24-hour coffeehouses if worse came to worst. I was getting up to leave when someone brushed almost imperceptibly against me; I turned around and gave my signature dirty look to the gal who did it. I felt rage rising up and considered whether a verbal response was called for (I decided it wasn't because that would have required me to actually talk to the person, which may have been her ulterior motive, for all I know). Let it pass.

I began to feel the "I hate San Francisco" part of me taking ascendancy, so I decided to drive out of the city and try to find a low-cost chain hotel. That might or might not have worked even if the Silicon Valley weren't presently experiencing a second-wave dot.com boom (with prices to match) and even if there weren't some sort of classic car show taking place in Pebble Beach that apparently justified tripling hotel prices as far away as Morgan Hill. However, it didn't work, much to the surprise of more than one hotel clerk who seemed surprised that I didn't consider $140 a bargain for a tired and threadbare hotel right off the interstate. Instead, I ended up at a 24-hour Denny's near San Jose, drinking coffee, having breakfast, and thinking about the unlikely but undeniably true chain of events that had led to precisely that moment.

Back in San Francisco as dawn was breaking, I weathered the strangeness of the early morning crowd at Starbucks on Fillmore, played "move the car when the two-hour free parking expires," took a brief catnap while parked on Clay Street in Pacific Heights, and discovered how difficult it is these days to find true rock and roll on the radio in the City. The latter circumstance seemed so unlikely that I was considering asking for help in finding a rock station if only a knowledgeable-looking person would happen along. Maybe Pac Heights wasn't the best place for it, as I saw very few people who looked like they ever listened to rock music, most of them being either elderly or otherwise lacking in anything remotely resembling a rock 'n' roll vibe. Such is San Francisco in the year 2017, where the Summer of Love is almost as if it never happened, depending on how hard you squint.

What San Francisco hasn't lost is a certain psychedelic quality, which requires no mind-altering drugs but is present in the very air (though I don't know: perhaps there is something in the water that alters the behavior of residents over time?). I told my friend that it was very noticeable, in this introverted city, how many pedestrians made eye contact with you over the course of a day; I was wondering if there had been some major catastrophe in the news that I hadn't heard about that was causing people to eye one another closely, but if there was a precipitating event, I never found what it was. I would have enjoyed my walks better if not for this peculiar and unnatural watchfulness, but I wasn't altogether surprised, since San Francisco seemed altered in some indefinable way the last couple of times I was there. I can't account for it, but I do not think it a change for the better.

I found the spirit of the old San Francisco coming on me at odd moments, as if to prove that, yes, the heart of the city is still beating somewhere, hidden away in some obscure corner or shabby coffeehouse. Stopped in traffic, I would look up and see an elegant, many-turreted Victorian with a broad front and crisp paint and think, "Yes, I could live there." Searching for a parking spot, I would top a hill and glimpse a sudden view of the bay, a lovely vista that was free for the asking and almost made the frustrating parking game worthwhile.

Returning from an excursion to Marin, I would see the gigantic towers of the Golden Gate bridge, stately and serene in the golden afternoon light, framed by hills--an enormity almost too much to absorb, as if a race of Titans (instead of mere men) had placed it there as a token of might. I would think, looking out at the ocean as we crossed the bridge, "I don't know what I'll be doing a week from now, but I'm going to hold this image in my mind as a reminder of where I was today." Glancing down a side street on the way in from the Sunset district, I would encounter an enchanting view of a street of cozy houses with a leafy burst of fall color, a quiet street that whispered, at least in my mind, an invitation to come back and walk around some time.

Peering up while stopped at a light, I would see a white curtain blowing in the breeze at an open bay window, a homey and domestic sight in hyper-sophisticated San Francisco that suddenly made me wish it was my window and that I was returning to it after an ordinary work day. I would see how green the grass was in the city parks, catch sight of a laughing child in its parent's arms, get a peek of a morning side street full of cafes in the Financial District, read a sign for a show at the de Young and wish I had the time and money to attend, and pass a corner apartment building with an empty lobby and plate glass windows that was gorgeous as it was but seemed the perfect spot for a tiny cafe.

I was sorry to leave San Francisco, despite the strangeness that hangs over it, because it is a place that manages to maintain its beauty in spite of whatever miasma may be clinging to it. I saw many streets, buildings, quarters, and corners that seemed to call out for further exploration, and I hope to be able to accomplish this some time. I don't know if I could ever live there permanently, and I don't know if I could be happy there, but I could spend some time wandering around, looking here and there, trying to avoid the noise while letting the city itself, the actual city, speak to me. If L.A. is a prehistoric creature disguised as a trendy starlet, a nymph, San Francisco is a cultured dowager hidden behind the face of a computer geek, a graceful lady currently incarnated in a techie, dot.com persona. She may be acquainted with sailors and robber barons, but even earthquakes can't dislodge her.

I Visit Skid Row and Come Away Chastened

Lately I've been thinking of ways to economize on my lodging as my job search continues, so I decided to investigate community resources that might be available to someone in my situation. The answer, as I discovered, is not many. Most of the resources are allocated (as is fitting) for people in very dire circumstances, and I guess the assumption is that middle class people have enough of a safety net in friends and family. I ascertained this for myself by visiting a downtown women's center, where I was told that they serve only the homeless, meaning women who have been living on the streets for a year or longer.

My immediate thought was that in that case a homeless person might be half-dead by the time they got there. I was incredulous, but I realize I shouldn't have been. I applaud the work these people are doing, but of course their resources are limited. Another agency I was directed to had a basement parking structure that was locked but so grim in appearance that I imagined a sign above it in medieval lettering saying, "Abandon all hope ye who enter here." Seriously. I could picture driving into it and never seeing the light of day again, so I was left to consider other alternatives.

This was my first visit to that part of downtown Los Angeles, and although I didn't find anything that would benefit me there, the streets were teeming with life, the good, the bad, and the ugly all side by side and on top of one another. The big flower markets and the homeless camps were within steps of one another: one block was lined with sidewalk tents and the next was clogged with tourists. I navigated a couple of narrow side streets packed with small shops and pedestrians that suddenly reminded me of London. I saw several landmarks--City Hall, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and Olvera Street--from different perspectives than I'm used to. And finally, I figured out how to get onto Sunset Boulevard from downtown without the weird little detour through a sketchy neighborhood that I remembered from the past. Have they possibly done some road work in that area?

I was sitting at a traffic light across from Olvera Street when I had one of those past, present, and future deja vu moments I was talking about last week. That is, I looked over and saw the exact spot where years ago I stood--on my first visit to L.A.--and looked with yearning in the direction of Sunset Boulevard, the street sign being all I could really see of it. I had been dropped off at the train station by the Amtrak bus and had a few hours to spare before catching my train back east, and boy, was I itching to see at least a little of the city I'd heard so much about. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any way to take a bus tour like I'd done in Chicago, and I'd been warned before I got there about wandering around alone (this was shortly before the city erupted over the Rodney King beating). Thus it was that my first experience of L.A. was limited to Union Station and Olvera Street, which nevertheless left a lasting impression.

As I was sitting at the light yesterday, I thought to myself, "This is one of those watershed moments in your life in which you realize that the present has finally caught up with the past (or perhaps it's the other way around). You'll remember this moment all your life." The truth is, though, that while I knew it was true, it didn't feel like a transcendent moment: I just felt like my everyday self, sitting in traffic, with my usual concerns, worried about splurging for coffee but feeling that, for the money, it was probably a good investment in mental hygiene, a small treat in lieu of bigger ones--and wondering when the light was going to change.

Despite the visit to Skid Row, it was a beautiful day. I was annoyed that my rental deposit from my old apartment has yet to arrive in the mail, but I still went in search of and found the cup of coffee I was looking for. (Well, maybe not exactly that cup. The coffeehouse, while suitably funky, was too full of hipsters, lending further credence to my feeling that I can't possibly be one.) The coffee was good, but the neighborhood didn't please me as much as it had on first impression. I capped it off with a walk in the park anyway (I do like the park) and was once again visited by local wildlife in the form of ducks and turtles as I stood enjoying the view across the water.

I had first taken the precaution of removing my road atlas, which contained a copy of my birth certificate and a job application, from my car and carrying them with me as I walked. That was after I noticed a white truck idling in the street near my car after I had parked it. Thinking that that looked a little peculiar, I decided to err on the side of caution, since my car's been broken into before. The truck pulled away as soon I started walking back to my car, not that it looks anything like a vehicle a typical thief would target. Never a dull moment, right? Actually, I think I would welcome a few dull moments, or at least a few ordinary ones.

Well, on the bright side, I am finding my way around a little better every day. For the second time in a row, I managed to get back on the Glendale Freeway going in the right direction and even remembered to get out of the exit lane in time to avoid a hair-raising last-minute scramble and a trip back to the neighborhood I had just left. I had decided against filling out the job application in the coffeehouse, where I didn't feel at ease enough to concentrate on it (I fell back on my library book, Martin Chuzzlewit, instead), thus necessitating a stop in a second cafe for the purpose of completing that task. I justified it in my mind as a business expense, though it will probably mean skipping coffee altogether for the foreseeable future.

With the job application completed, I headed back to my hotel, still wrestling with the same career and financial difficulties as before but having somehow managed to enjoy the day in spite of it. I'm a realist, but I try not to let that get in the way of a sunny day. The short cut I took on the way back didn't work out, as sometimes happens with my short cuts, which turn into learning experiences instead. I ended up in Long Beach, and it's a mystery to me how that happened, but it let me realize that some of the little trips I'd taken earlier, apparently fruitless, had paid off by allowing me to recognize street names and get myself going the right way while bypassing an area I'd rather avoid.

If there's a moral to this story, I suppose it is this: never drive into an opening that looks like the gates of hell. Nothing good could possibly come of it. Or else it might be: either you're a hipster, or you're not. Visit a hipster joint and find out; you'll soon know. Or possibly: you can learn something from everything, even if it's taking a wrong turn, as long as you figure it out in time. Or maybe it's all three.

The Soul and Three Cities

Last night, I picked up a book I've had for a while on psyche and the life of cities. I read two or three chapters some time ago and laid it aside; last night it happened to be sitting in a pile of books near at hand when I was looking for something to read. I started with the chapter on San Francisco, which I apparently hadn't gotten to before, since none of it seemed familiar. I picked the chapter out of curiosity, since I've visited the city a number of times and wanted to see what the author, a long-time resident and psychoanalyst, had to say about it.

A recent incident helped prompt my curiosity. I sometimes look at apartments and places to live in other cities, just for fun; I like to see how much things cost and to consider possibilities. I rarely look at San Francisco, but one night, in an idle moment, I did a search for apartments in an area of the city that I rather like. I did the search, pulled up some results, and looked at a couple of apartments; I was looking at one with a lovely view of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge when I was hit by a feeling of claustrophobia that nearly amounted to revulsion. I had the sudden conviction that I couldn't see myself ever living in San Francisco, and the strange thing was how strong the feeling was.

The author of the San Francisco essay confirmed my feeling rather than dissuading me from it, despite the fact that he obviously loves his city. His essay suggested to me that it might be hard to feel grounded in San Francisco, that the distance between people in that city of people in pursuit of themselves could make meaningful connections difficult. The writer describes an unusually high degree of self-preoccupation there, not that this is necessarily a bad thing. It may be unavoidable for the people who are drawn to live there, since the city's famous openness, as he tells it, almost demands that residents make a project of their individuality. It left me feeling, though, that San Francisco might be quite a lonely place, and a tenuous one, too.

I agree with the author that San Francisco is lovely to visit and has great physical charm; I also agree with his observation that the city probably doesn't reveal its inner life readily to a visitor. You could go to San Francisco for a week or 10 days and enjoy every minute of it as a tourist, but what you're seeing tells you very little about what it would be like to live there. This is true to some degree of most places, I think, but perhaps even more so of San Francisco. The author attributes this to a high degree of introversion among its residents, something a casual visitor wouldn't be likely to notice.

After the San Francisco chapter, I turned to the section on London, another city I have spent time in. It was, oddly, rather a relief to turn to this chapter, though the author's designation of the color red as the city's signature color, a provocative idea to start with, got to the heart of something I noticed when I was there. One of the fascinating things about London, as he points out, is the way its long history is layered so visibly in its buildings, layout, monuments, and place names. He pointed to the double nature of the color red, emblematic of life and vitality but also of death, a reminder of the many centuries of struggle and upheaval the city has endured.

I remember my long-ago first visit to London's Westminster Hall and the almost physical feeling of the weight of years that hit me while I was standing inside. I'd never had a sensation like that before, a feeling of being buried under layers of history, as if all the events that had ever taken place were still present in the room. It wasn't a pleasant feeling and was actually rather frightening, though that was the only time I really experienced it that way. As I got used to finding my way around, I was increasingly fascinated by the way pieces of the past were embedded in the present, sometimes subtly, so that you had to know they were there--a piece of Roman wall visible through the window of a basement, for instance, if you bent your head and looked.

After reading the London chapter last night, I found myself thinking: if I had to choose whether to spend six months in San Francisco or six months in London, which would it be? London appealed to me more. Somehow, London seems more definite and less ghostly to me than San Francisco does, strange though it may seem to say it. Even as an American, I think I could find my way around London more easily than I could around the Bay Area, which says more about me, of course, than it does about the merits of either place. I'm not saying the same thing would or should be true of anyone else.

This afternoon, I read the book's chapter on New York City, a place with which I have very little personal experience. I used to find the idea of New York positively overwhelming, but lately I've begun to feel that I wish I knew the city better. Maybe sometime I'll get the chance. In any event, I learned more about New York, its history, and its layout (which has always been a source of complete mystification to me) in just two hours than I've managed to pick up in decades of hearing about it and seeing it on television and in the movies. The author of the piece made no assumptions, as others sometimes do, about a reader's prior knowledge of the city, providing not only a pictorial overview but also a succinct summation of history and geography that helped give it shape in my mind.

I'm not sure why I've always been content to have such a pleasantly vague notion of New York, to hear about Central Park, Greenwich Village, the Hudson River, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and the Lower East Side without really having any idea of how they relate to one another. Curiosity finally seems to have kicked in, perhaps due in part to the many novels I've read in recent years that have managed to convey some sense of the city's allure, leading me to think that, while it's a tough place, it has its own magic. Why I have derived such a feeling for the city from reading fiction rather from seeing it in movies or on TV is a bit of a mystery. I do think that since 9/11, many Americans have developed a more protective feeling toward New York. The psychic wound created there still affects us all, and that may be another reason I feel drawn to the city.

After reading about New York, I posed myself another choice: "OK, what if you had to choose between San Francisco and New York?" A very interesting psychic exercise, to be sure, because there was a time I never would have said this (or even thought it), but New York appealed to me more. I wouldn't go so far as to say I can picture myself as a New Yorker, but if I had to choose a place for a longish visit, I'd pick New York. How strange that hard-edged, fast-paced New York should end up seeming more human to me than San Francisco, swathed in its fogs and soft hills, but that does seem to be the case. Again, this isn't a statement of absolute value but rather a reflection of a psychic shift on my part.

If you're interested in reading about the ways Jungian analysts describe the psychic life of their cities, the book I've been referring to is Psyche & the City: A Soul's Guide to the Modern Metropolis, edited by Thomas Singer. You may agree or disagree with the way a particular writer sees things, but Jungians are unusually sensitive to the inner life, distinctive rhythms, and peculiarities that give a place character, and this is reflected in their writing. Their intimate knowledge of the cities they live in may provide insight (or rebuttal) for experiences you've had as a visitor (or even as a resident) but couldn't quite explain. I'm still in shock over the way my psyche has rejected San Francisco (the home, after all, of Ghirardelli Chocolate--think about it!), but John Beebe's chapter on the city helped me to see some of the reasons why this may have happened.

The Sense of Place

Do different places express different archetypes? The question has interested me for several years, and I actually considered working on it for my dissertation. I think the answer is yes, but it's easy to fall into oversimplification when you try to identify what those archetypes are.

I'm especially intrigued by comparisons of urban environments. Is it possible to identify predominant archetypes in a city as expressed in its image, economy, physical environment, and the people it attracts? Can you characterize Seattle as being more like Hermes and San Francisco as being more like Aphrodite? Is Washington D.C. a city of Athena? Does Boston, with all its colleges, have more of a heady Apollo energy? Any city obviously has multiple faces, subcultures, nuances, and shadows, but predominant themes often seem present.

I've read books by people who have addressed these issues either as depth psychologists or from other perspectives, and they seem to agree that different places represent noticeably different aspirations and "personalities." I spent a lot of time a few years ago trying to identify the main archetypes of the place I live in, wanting to understand what it excelled in and what it lacked, especially in comparison to other places. When I first started thinking about it, I found this hard to do, probably because I'd been here so long and couldn't see things from the outside. Having been around a bit more since then (I traveled a lot in 2011), I have more of a basis for comparison now and can articulate what I know.

There's a calmness about Lexington, an orderliness that's in noticeable contrast to, say, Los Angeles, which is much more venturesome -- even chaotic. Part of it's a size difference, of course, but I think there's also a difference in underlying dynamics. Lexington is in many ways a settled place, centered on families, it seems to me, so that it has a feeling of Hestia, hearth, and home. L.A. and San Francisco (and many other places) are also much more hedonistic than Lexington. Hedonism, unless it's of a sedate variety, just doesn't seem to play well here.

I've found Lexington to be both comfortable and confining. I've always thought it was a probably a better place to raise a family than to live in as a single woman, and it all has to do with that homely quality. I've often felt out of my element here, as if standing out too much in any way was always going to be a problem. I felt that I might thrive in a more adventurous environment, a place with more variety not only in cultural and occupational opportunities but also in the people I would meet. I finally addressed this frustration when I commuted to graduate school out of state, an arrangement that let me stay in place but experience the stimulus of an entirely different environment.

My home and even my job were rife with Hestian qualities of order and caretaking; I needed an infusion of a different kind of energy, more Aphrodite, more Apollo, and more Hermes (for a feeling of movement and lightness).

I told a friend before I started at Pacifica that I hoped it would help me figure out either how to leave here or how to stay. During the three years I was commuting to Southern California, I was pretty much in the "leave" mode; the question was where, when, and how. But a funny thing happened somewhere along the way, because once released from three years of what was definitely a labor of love but gave me no free time, I was at leisure to rediscover my own town. Somehow, despite its drawbacks, Lexington suddenly seemed to offer more than I remembered.

I re-discovered the Gallery Hop; there seemed to be more places to have brunch on Saturdays; I had time to attend Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour at the Kentucky Theatre (on the night I attended, I was having dinner in a nearby restaurant when it was announced that a European opera singer was in the house and would give a brief performance); a couple of weeks later, I saw a play by Samuel Beckett in the theatre of the same small restaurant. Lexington had perhaps changed and expanded a little, but what seemed really different was me. My graduate program, and what it took to see it through, had enlarged me, so that I felt more confident in my own skin, wherever I happened to be. Perhaps my vision had also become more acute so that I was now able to seek out those touches of Aphrodite and Apollo and Hermes wherever they happened to be.

Kentucky is, of course, very land-locked, so that the spirit of Uranus, the ocean, is not much felt here. I like the feeling of having land all around me; it's nice to able to move in any direction. But when I was in California, spending so much time between the mountains and the sea, I think I developed an expansiveness partly in response to the intellectual and social climate and partly in response to the physical environment. Looking up at the mountains and out over the ocean must have trained my eye, without my knowing it, to seek further and to see more. I think it's difficult to stay settled in your ways when you spend a lot of time next to the ocean, which presents such a challenge to ideas of solidity. I must have needed a little of that moisture, that fluidity, and that sense of things loosening up. And maybe the mountains raised my sights a little higher.

I miss the beauty of those California interludes, but I think in the end they did their job and became a part of me. Some sort of rebalancing took place that was partly to do with my studies and partly to do with the different energy I experienced on the West Coast. Never underestimate the power of place.