Reintroduction

My customary comings and goings are pretty prosaic. Walks to the Publix for groceries, to the CVS for batteries and vitamins and stamps. Cash from the credit union, reading on a bench behind Mary’s Cottage. A lovely view of the park from there. I walk the Swamp Rabbit to let off steam, and as the mood strikes, walk to a handful of restaurants for breakfast or lunch, Biscuit Head being a current favorite. It’s a cat-themed eatery, so that fact, taken with the GF biscuits and blackberry jam, makes it well nigh irresistible when the morning larder is low.

As you might have gathered, downtown Greenville’s walkability score is rather high, so there are plenty of other places I could, arguably should, be walking, but don’t. Entertainment venues, for example. If I lived on the south side of my building, I could drop water balloons on the loading dock of the Peace Center, a major regional performing arts complex, and almost every weekend, the monied masses stream past my balcony en route to tourist magnets like Artisphere, Euphoria, Fall for Greenville, Downtown Alive, and TD Saturday Market. Bike races, marathons, festivals, parades. Come one, come all. If my car were stolen from the city garage where it slumbers like a neglected pet dragon, I might not miss it for weeks.

But most days, by 6 o’clock or so, I’m settled in for the evening, shoes off, book open, Acadia situated adjacently. If I happen to be sitting on the aforementioned balcony and happen to notice the passersby, I find that I’m as glad of my exclusion from the bustle as I am of my proximity to it. My relationship with the city is benignly parasitic, you might say. I’m a spectator, not a participant, a private box owner who rarely glances up to watch the game.

Which is kind of a pity, I’ll admit.

Which is why doing a show in town this month has been a welcome reminder of why I moved here 13 years ago. Walking home on performance nights at hours I’m almost never seen outside my flat, I felt the long-forgotten frisson of living in a destination city. The after-hours palpability of disposable income, the sudden nearness of the foothills, the pre-autumn breeze. Everything just so, from the West End to the River Walk to NOMA Square. The smells and bells of what I sometimes mockingly, but lately with more affection, refer to as “beautiful, historic Greenville, South Carolina.”

I happen to know – and have thanked sincerely – the city planner who thought to hang wind chimes in the venerable trees that line Main Street. I love those chimes, and the lights that weave among the branches they inhabit, but that combination, the magical effect of it, happens only after the sun goes down. Likewise, the nighttime acoustics of the waterfall, the cozy aspect of low-lit paths and terraced grades, the scent of lavender and artemisia bushes cooling at dusk, the savory exhalations of shops and restaurants.

So. Note to self: Get out more. Ride the trolley. Drop some money in a street musician’s bucket and watch the fireworks over Fluor Field. Eat an evening meal al fresco or at a window table way high up, one with a view of the mountains, then walk back mindfully to your enviable location, location, location and try to feel some gratitude for everything you’ve lucked into.