They come to our streets in air conditioned tanks, spinning hours around the block finding the right spot to place their tank into park.
And they spill out, at first with trepidation and fear but eventually curiosity and amazement bewilder their senses.
“How can this be! A real city!” The colors, the smells, the shapes, the organic food and the chai lattes, they all undo the false prophecies in their head about how their lives should be perfectly shaped.
They eat their gourmet dinners in hypocrisy, for as soon as sun begins to set, the fear returns. The urbanity of urbanism rakes at their minds, it pushes them back into their sheltered lives physically and figuratively. Return to the tank!
And at once, they snuggle up into air conditioned leather or heated seats or DVD players and set off in fervor to the nearest on-ramp to steal away to a government subsidized single-family plot that once was fertile farm land that grew their organic crops.
These are the outsiders who carry dangerous politics and ideals, conditioned by their brethren of corporate stature. Pay as little taxes to gain the most fruits of life — on someone else’s dime.
They seek the city as momentary pleasure but only find pain for it challenges their preconceptions, the taste of truth, of vitality in urbanity, overwhelms them. They fear their plots of land which have no gardens or trees might actually be vain wasted space. They fear their lives might not be perfect where they are.
5/28/2010