Skyline

Notes from the field

I am visiting a friend in a different part of the area where I have resettled in California. As I exit the elevator on his floor, I discover an interesting view. I pause to snap a photo. As I turn to walk the last few steps and ring his doorbell, a nonagenarian black woman shuffles past me, hunched over her walker, with a tiny leashed Dachsund trotting beside. “Good morning,” she says with a grin. I return the greeting, politely passing her in the opposite direction.

Human diversity is not new to me. I am entirely comfortable hearing foreign languages in my building and on the street. Alabama too has Arabs running convenience stores and Pakistanis running liquor stores. I am less used to Uber, an app I never used once ‘back home’ in the Yellowhammer state. I have only ever used it on vacation, so the occasional rideshare makes my new California life a sort of extended timeshare experience.

Everywhere I go, I feel the same sense of temporaryness. People are friendly, helpful, but also on their way somewhere else. This whole state feels like it is ready to check out any time, as if we are all foreigners, and everyone is planning to leave that skyline in the rear-view mirror at sunset, someday.