people are hard to love. they change. they change their minds, their careers, their hair. they grow up or get fat or lose their teeth even. people can lie to you. they can hurt you. they can disappoint you. maybe i’m wrong, but to a degree, love seems like something that should be…permanent, fixed somehow. but a person changes from second to second. you can’t attach something fixed to something that never stops moving.
but a city. you can love a city. a city has endless patience. it changes, but it never moves. it can grow or shrink, oscillate, breathe…but it doesn’t re-locate. it will always be exactly where you left it. it will never expect anything of you, never ask anything of you. a city doesn’t take it personally when you have to leave, and it will always welcome you with open arms if you return. a city has no judgements, no pretense. you can be the one who grows up or gets fat or loses your teeth, and the city won’t see you as anything different. a city doesn’t care if you’re afraid or insecure. it will offer you the same amount of space and the same opportunity it offers to anyone else.
even take a tough city like los angeles. if you choose to love LA, if you ask for it to open itself to you, it will. it will take you in and bathe you with over 300 sunny days a year. it will give you mountains and beaches and all different kinds of food. then there are cities that are somehow better suited to loving. like new york. or london. sure, you pay for the ease of those cities with biting winters and rainy summers, but they find a way to give you everything. quiet cafes in the middle of bustling intersections. art, music, business, culture, life, language…anything you are looking for, you will find.
but at the end of a long day of finding everything you’re looking for, a city can’t hold you. it can’t follow you into your bed. even if you live in a city that doesn’t sleep, you still have to…and if you sleep all of those sleeps alone…well, eventually, i think, you move to the country to find someone to love. (or to eat a lot of peaches. yeah. i went there.)
maybe don’t love a city…
