Impressions

Urban. Suburban. Rural. I've visited rural but I have lived in both urban and suburban locales. Each of the three is vastly different from the other. One of the differences is congestion. And noise. Then too the presence of nature is present in each, other urban settings make nature more special. Must be the paucity that makes that so.

Noise. The hum of machinery unseen but ever present making lights work, railroads function, and heating and air conditioning systems operate. The hum is not always noticed. If you are new to the neighborhood you notice. Quickly it becomes background and environment. Not noticed. Like the trains rumbling through the night. Sometimes a bell or two, rarely a horn, but sometimes a light toot. Always, though, the rumble. A reminder of its weight and might and the importance of its mission.

Traffic. Sometimes light and predictably heavy during rush hours. Regulated and routine traffic as people go about their lives. Just like us. In all kinds of weather and at all hours of the day and night. Some work days while others work nights. Still others work different shifts or odd hours. Function and mission mixed into routine. Normal. A tempo thrummed as tattoo.

When I first visited Chicago it was at my great aunt’s apartment on the west side of the city. The neighborhood was called Austin. She taught English at the high school there. It was certainly urban but mostly of apartment buildings, small yards and closely planted houses. Streets were tightly knit and heavily parked with autos. But the hum, nearly a roar, that spoke of urban surrounding. I marveled at the sound then. I still do today.

It drums a rhythm of excitement, of the city’s presence.

Birds singing make their presence known. Flittering about in tree tops and bushes they raise a more personal presence. In suburban settings this is common, almost signature. In urban surrounds not as commonly noticed but still there. Like coyotes prowling city streets, nature whispers its presence always. It came first, we second. Don’t forget.

Buildings are different. Frame homes and small frame and brick apartment buildings. That’s suburban. Mighty thick walled buildings containing homes and businesses – that’s the stuff of city. Noticeable right at the start the size of real estate structures tells us many people live here and work here. The  neighborhood is a presence of large, brooding structures. In time their grace appears to our eye. We see beyond large and brooding. We notice line and light, form and function. The intellect of structure becomes open to view.

Flow of traffic takes on grace and motion sweeping through the urban landscape like a ballet. Ordered and enticing; motion of purpose and hope, of future.

I’m not speaking of vast city now, but differences among suburbs – some weighted by population, others by villages of gathering neighbors. Some towns are small and simple; some more ponderous and congested. Like a small city. Different from neighboring communities.

Impressions of life among others. Not yet personal but of differing scales. Size and density. Population and walkable streets. Villages, towns, cities. Communities all.

We live in vast diversity in bewildering arrays of scope in America. Do we see this? Do we allow awareness to embrace it all?

I wonder. From such stuff come poems. Making sense of everything before sense is made of it. The finery of nature. The finery of social structure. How alike are they? In whatever surrounding?

March 24, 2014