Some weekend thoughts
Feb. 24th, 2013 01:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteI woke up late, after broken and difficult sleep. I'd tried to fetch the cat into my room twice, to keep me company, but each time she wandered out.
So I got up, and rode out to catch the tail end of the Farmer's Market, and grabbed some produce and too much breakfast. I stood in the sunshine next to the bike repairman, chatting with him for a bit, then listening to my Bryant and May audiobook while gazing at the people. It was interesting to look at the gamut of shapes and outfits and ponder how the attitudes of the people I saw defined their style, and their place in the social web. Women who clearly spent hours on their clothing, with matched layers, styled hair, and carefully chosen accessories, sat adjacent to women who appeared to be wearing whatever was closest at hand in the dresser when they got out of bed. Others wore outfits that were threadbare and stained but were also just as carefully assembled to convey a subcultural style, like "punk" or "mod" or "urban professional". There were even a few religious types, sitting together in voluminous pastel robes, their hair shaved, their feet in slippers. One of them was a large burly young man who was self-consciously performing yoga stretches on the grass, looking up every ten or fifteen seconds to try and catch people watching him.
The place was also awash with urban couples pushing strollers along, or toting small children in slings or backpacks. The women were earthy and relaxed, casually confident that the world revolved around them. The men had bed-hair and wore vacant expressions. I watched a few of them talk and move for a while and observed that these couples had a kind of tunnel-vision. They noticed other children, and other couples with children. All other people - young or old - were totally invisible. I felt amazed at how thorough the separation was. It was almost like there were two farmer's markets overlaid on each other with no connection between them - the one for young urban parents, and the one for everyone else.
Anyway, I chomped my vegetarian Thai food, picking out most of the overwhelming amount of tofu, then chomped halfway through the salmon crepe and folded it up into a paper plate, then stowed it in my saddlebag for the ride home. The sun was out and the air was clear. On a whim, I zig-zagged a few blocks over and stopped at Mariposa bakery, and got two cupcakes, then stopped in the park to eat one while lounging in the sun. Teenagers and rough-looking adults made noise in the basketball courts nearby, and little kids clamored in the sandbox. I noticed a girl in immaculate cornrows and thought to myself, "there's a hairstyle you probably never see in my home town."
I remember there had been a small, ridiculous part of me that was worried that since I didn't like my girlfriend's hair in cornrows, I was subconsciously racist. Living in West Oakland for three years has washed a lot of that hazy "white guilt" thinking away.
These thoughts flashed in the spaces between the mental theatre of the Bryant and May audiobook. I lazed in the sun for another half-hour, then pedaled slowly home.
So I got up, and rode out to catch the tail end of the Farmer's Market, and grabbed some produce and too much breakfast. I stood in the sunshine next to the bike repairman, chatting with him for a bit, then listening to my Bryant and May audiobook while gazing at the people. It was interesting to look at the gamut of shapes and outfits and ponder how the attitudes of the people I saw defined their style, and their place in the social web. Women who clearly spent hours on their clothing, with matched layers, styled hair, and carefully chosen accessories, sat adjacent to women who appeared to be wearing whatever was closest at hand in the dresser when they got out of bed. Others wore outfits that were threadbare and stained but were also just as carefully assembled to convey a subcultural style, like "punk" or "mod" or "urban professional". There were even a few religious types, sitting together in voluminous pastel robes, their hair shaved, their feet in slippers. One of them was a large burly young man who was self-consciously performing yoga stretches on the grass, looking up every ten or fifteen seconds to try and catch people watching him.
The place was also awash with urban couples pushing strollers along, or toting small children in slings or backpacks. The women were earthy and relaxed, casually confident that the world revolved around them. The men had bed-hair and wore vacant expressions. I watched a few of them talk and move for a while and observed that these couples had a kind of tunnel-vision. They noticed other children, and other couples with children. All other people - young or old - were totally invisible. I felt amazed at how thorough the separation was. It was almost like there were two farmer's markets overlaid on each other with no connection between them - the one for young urban parents, and the one for everyone else.
Anyway, I chomped my vegetarian Thai food, picking out most of the overwhelming amount of tofu, then chomped halfway through the salmon crepe and folded it up into a paper plate, then stowed it in my saddlebag for the ride home. The sun was out and the air was clear. On a whim, I zig-zagged a few blocks over and stopped at Mariposa bakery, and got two cupcakes, then stopped in the park to eat one while lounging in the sun. Teenagers and rough-looking adults made noise in the basketball courts nearby, and little kids clamored in the sandbox. I noticed a girl in immaculate cornrows and thought to myself, "there's a hairstyle you probably never see in my home town."
I remember there had been a small, ridiculous part of me that was worried that since I didn't like my girlfriend's hair in cornrows, I was subconsciously racist. Living in West Oakland for three years has washed a lot of that hazy "white guilt" thinking away.
These thoughts flashed in the spaces between the mental theatre of the Bryant and May audiobook. I lazed in the sun for another half-hour, then pedaled slowly home.
no subject
Date: 2018-05-04 02:48 pm (UTC)Lazy Sunday morning (was it Sunday?)
Reminds me my childhood.