There are relationships that just happen and then there are relationships that require hard work. Such is my complex relationship with St. Louis. I still haven’t been able to feel this city as my own and integrate it into my way of being.
Today I’m in St. Louis to have my fingerprints taken for immigration purposes, so I decided to use this opportunity to walk around the city and try to figure it out. Right now I’m having a raspberry mocha in a non-chain, real coffee-shop and planning my classes on my Kindle. Then I will go to the legendary Left Bank Bookstore because if there is anything that can reconcile me to a city, it’s shopping for books.
Another city I always had an uneasy relationship with is New York. Before visiting it, I spend several years watching Law & Order reruns with my sister. As a result, we became convinced that New York was a city where there was a corpse under every bush and a rapist or a killer around every corner.
The first time I went to New York, my sister was so worried that she told me to call her on the phone every half hour. “If more than 30 minutes pass without you getting in touch,” she said, “I will contact the police and they can start searching for you.”
My friends and I got to New York on a beautiful September day. My friends were eager to show me the city and suggested we take a walk in Central Park.
“No!” I almost screamed. “I’ll never go to Central Park because that’s where all the rapists are!”
Eventually, I realized that one can spend a day in New York without becoming a victim of violent crime but the sense of unease I associate with the city never entirely dissipated.
The cities where I felt immediately at home the moment I arrived there are Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, London, Kiev, Coimbra, Lisbon, and Seville.
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