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Visiting other cities is always defined for me by people. Some I talk to, if only for a few seconds. Others I just pass by, coming no closer than a car window at 20 mph.

Ottawa

–

A bike messenger – too cheap, too poor, or too proud to wear but a bandana tied around his face. It spreads out over his mouth to keep wind off his cheeks and chin. His breath freezes as he exhales into the rag; blue cotton turns dark, then is trimmed with white frost. He track stands on his fixie at the stoplight. Bike messengers, especially in cold cities, are all a little bit crazy (or at least they want to be perceived that way), but the few with an ounce of sanity wear helmets.

–

The woman at the vegan bakery – with her dreadlocked hair and loose-fitting
clothes, she leans over the counter uncomfortably far to offer assistance and winks when you order the “Hemp Brownie.” She leans so far, that she’s in your space. You want to take a step back, but there is a line of people behind you. It’s like driving down a narrow street when the car in front of you suddenly stops and tries to back into the space on the right. You need to back up to get out of the driver’s way, but there is a car behind you. All three cars just sit there uncomfortably until the stalemate is broken and the trying-to park car drives off to circle the block and try again.

She wears sleeveless tops, in layers, even in January. Each layer is a sheer ankle-length dress. But she wears just enough layers not to raise eyebrows. She’s dressing in layers, but not the way most people mean to in below-freezing weather.

–

Jody asked where I’d climbed before. We swapped stories of climbs in the mountains
of North Carolina, and he told me about a temporary job he once had planning
routes at a climbing wall in Kitty Hawk. He proceeded to teach my group the
basics of belaying. He’s one of those people with a gift for explaining something
three-hundred times, and on the three-hundred and first, it sounds fresh and
new. He’s not bored with what he does. Why can’t New York subway conductors
sound like that?

–

When packing for the trip, I saw that I was down to one pen in my messenger
bag. Mental note: I need to pack another pen. “You’ve used this pen forever;
it’s not going to run out,” I reply to myself. What kind of sense did
that make? The longer you use a pen, the closer you are to needing a replacement.
5:10pm, December 31st, my pen runs dry. I’m picky about what kind of pen I
can use, so I set off walking across the enormous parking lot of the hotel
I’m staying in to find an open store with a pen that will satisfy my grip.

Halfway across the parking lot, a Jeep Cherokee pulls up beside me. The driver
leans out the window to ask, “do you know where the Baton Rouge is?” “In
Louisiana,” I reply earnestly. From his use of the definite article,
I should have guessed that he wasn’t testing my knowledge of geography as much
as looking for a Cajun restaurant. He drove away more confused than when he’d
stopped.

New York

–

The svelte young desk clerk at the hotel has those pouty lips that all of
Hollywood desires. She explains to me how to get my parking ticket validated
so that I can pay the discounted rate. Although I understand what I need to
do, there’s something interesting about her accent, so I ask a question that
prompts her to explain it all again. Something about the way she says “…so
that you won’t…” rings in my ears, and I search for a question I can
ask so that she’ll say it again.

–

This summer, I went to Disney World – not for the first time, and probably
not for the last. Disney is a strange place because of its ability to trick
you into thinking that more of what goes on there is real than what is artificial.
The real-to-fake ratio is actually pretty low. What clinched for me the artificiality
of it all was going back for a second day of Magic Kingdom. I watched for the
second time, the exact same skits, dances, parades, and fireworks show; each
seemed so original and special the day before. It felt like Groundhog Day,
only I knew that the only way back to reality was just to leave Disney altogether.

Times Square is a lot like Disney World. The lights, the gloss, the stores,
and the street vendors are all hocking pop-culture icons. They try to sell
you a souvenir you don’t need; a hat that you’d think ugly anywhere else, but
you want it because “Disney” or “NYC” is stitched on
the front. Uniquely odd are the “NYPD” emblazoned paraphernalia
and the booklets of amateur photographs of the destruction of the Twin Towers.

But New York is even more strange than Disney because it’s not just an artificial
world. It doesn’t close down at night for cleaning, polishing, repairing, and
preparing for the next day’s show. The show goes on all night long because
the characters walking down the street aren’t paid to do so. For 8 million
people, New York is their home.