Urban Strife

Lately I've been thinking how much I like living in London. The daffodils are blooming everywhere and life is good here. But crossing the green today on the way home from dropping off Luci, I was also in touch with how irritating it can be to live in urban areas.

This is not a post about how bad it is to live in urban areas. You just have to be aware of the cost and how difficult it can be--I believe it is not until you realize that, that you can enjoy and thrive living there. In San Francisco, if you were a regular rider of buses (or even just a walker of sidewalks), you had to fight being depressed as there were so many desperate, crazy, sad people on the bus with you. It provoked sorrow but also the feeling of "I need to know how to explain this to my children."

So today, I was angry with some old man who was shooing Peanut away from participating in ball fetching with his dog. They were getting along fine and besides Peanut doesn't actually fetch other dogs balls so there's no stealing involved. I decided to walk towards him and have him look at me,then I would say "She's friendly and she's not gonna take your dog's ball." He, however, did not look at me, so I said nothing and turned around in the other direction. I find it so irritating that there is a thousand reasons why dogs can't play together her--"Mine's aggressive", "They're both bitches", "He's afraid of big dogs", "She's just a little scared." Maybe I'll hear, "My dog doesn't like really furry dogs." It so irritating and I know there are some legit statements because there are aggressive dogs but I find this state of affairs a bit overly phobic and just irritating. Let's all just stand in park, you in that corner, me in this corner. It separates us.

Then I come home and get a knock on the door. Better answer it, I think--maybe it's somebody coming to clean the junk up from in front of my door. (About 4 nights ago, some neighbors upstairs ripped out their carpeting and some miscellaneous wood, and I've been juggling my patience ever since, since it was basically placed in front of our door. I watched the dumpster right beside my door sit half full for a day while the trash sat there. I did chuck some in but no way could I do it all, and I wanted to see what happened. And there is no excuse for this trashing of the sidewalk because, actually, everyone here knows that stuff is not supposed to go in the dumpster but along the wall near the street. It is acceptable to put large thing like that there and a city person will come remove it. It is a big long wall with lots of space in front of it.) So I open the door and the man says "Is this your carpet?" No--and I try to go on but he cuts me off. "Is this not your wood flooring?" No, same thing, cuts me off. "But look, the blue of the carpet is on your door mat." And at this point I am so irritated because I have felt really disrespected by the carpet at my door all week-end and especially irritated by the carpet lint that has blown up and dirtied my doorstep. So I tell him something like, "Look, I do not want to be accused. All week-end I have stepped over this stuff, and have had to move it over just to get my pushchair by with my 2 young kids." Apparently convinced by the authenticity of my reaction, he said "All right, all right, it's okay--I'll report the people upstairs."

After I shut my door, had a brief meltdown, then recuperated, I went outside to say "You should check to see if it's the people I said it was so that the wrong people aren't reported." And he said "No you were right, and sorry about that, I would have reacted the same way." Then I said "Sorry, you got the brunt of my frustration of seeing this stuff all week-end."

It's an interesting situation here. It seems you have to know when to fight the battles. And you have to stay in the fight without letting it consume you. When the water was basically out for 7 days, I desperately wanted to rage but I also was new and wanted to see what the residents who'd been here longer would do. In that situation, it seemed like they were doing the right thing but there was hardly any response. (Total illegality I felt, and have come to believe, as my friend has assured me there actually is a right to water in the law here. It seems like a no-brainer but they have signed it into law for a reason, and we were not even handed out water until days into it--oh and I wasn't even informed that they were handing out water.) The carpet on my doorstep was something I asked a neighbor about and then I felt I should wait it out to see if anyone else felt the same way and to not appear like the jumpy resident who's on top of reporting anything and everything. (This is after having to call 3 times to get my recycling collected last week when they didn't pick it up as they are supposed to.) I saw looks of curiousity and "What's this?" from other residents as they passed but of course none of them could be as irritated as me since it was on my doorstep. Maybe they felt it was me. But my intention was to wait until the end of the day and then make a call to the council. Thankfully it is already gone.

On an upbeat note, I forgot to mention that it was Mother's Day yesterday and Jesse pulled out a card and fairy cake for me. At church, all the women (not just mothers) didn't just get a flower but a bouquet of daffodils and crocuses. There were extras for us too, so I came home with four! Not too shabby!