Week 2 (Part 1)

I did not care very much for Paul Yoon’s story. Maybe I will read it again. I am very excited about Suburban Nation, however. As I read the Introduction, I thought to myself, cynically, This will be a complaint about individuation, about the sickness of bland houses all in a row, about the bland suburbs I plan to raise my family in, about the lack of creativity in planning neighborhoods. It will be the same argument that children make against wearing school uniforms, at the level of architecture.

I entered into it a cynic. I was wrong to do this.

Instead I am wholly captivated. I try to consider how this will function for our class, for discussion, and I can only guess it has something to do with the residents of the Hill District. But I refuse to guess now. Instead, I want to spend more time with this book.

As I read, I have reflected on my own neighborhoods, all those places I’ve lived since I was a child. Hermosa Beach was a beautiful, small place. Here my neighborhood had two parks, a small market, the ocean, two downtowns within walking or biking distance, the Strand (where people came to ride bikes and walk and roller skate along the beach), two piers, a thousand restaurants, three schools, bike-friendly and pedestrian-friendly narrow streets, etc. I grew up here. Since then, everything has matched the descriptions of sprawl, with two exceptions—and I have since driven almost everywhere. The first exception was the year I lived in Uptown Whittier, a mere three blocks from the the Little Old Bookshop, from the outdoor café Mimos, a place where I came almost every day to read and eat and smoke and talk to friends; the second exception is here, in Pittsburgh, where I live in Morningside, next to Highland Park, which, though imperfect, makes me feel comfortable when I go walking, and I walk to all kinds of places: there is the Union project, where my church, The Open Door, meets; Highland Park’s reservoir; Tazza D’oro; my many friends and neighbors; Heth’s Park where I take my dogs to chase Frisbees, and this, around the corner from my house, is connected to the neighborhood’s Catholic church—whose bells chime out the hours; Rite Aid is less than a mile away, and, if I need milk or pancake mix, it takes almost no time to get to; I walk my dogs in the neighborhood and say hello to my neighbors. This is a good, comfortable place to live.

All other places have been spread thin, and I drove everywhere I had to get to. I lived in La Habra, worked in Lynwood, shopped in Fullerton, visited family in Yorba Linda and Lomita, had the freeways memorized and hated everyone on them. I will return to this lifestyle soon—in only four months—but thankfully we are moving to a place that, while I will drive most of the time, seems to be a neat compromise, since I’ll work and shop nearby, and live near friends.

But, I have yet to write for myself. When I think about writing, I do not think about Thich Nhat Hanh; I do not think about The Anatomy of Memory, or Suburban Nation. Perhaps I should, at least this semester. But I don’t. Instead, when I think about writing, and what inspires me to write, I think about PostSecret.com. I think about the range of human capability, of our secrets, of our confessions, of bonding over common evils. This is about the only reading lately that inspires me to write—or, more specifically in my case lately, to revise. See the website. Buy the book. It is a form of contemplation I am thankful for beyond words.