well, true to my form (i used to be liberal, now i'm conservative, i've been married twice and divorced twice, i transferred undergraduate schools twice (though never majors....i was always sure about that) and i have, in my adult life, moved residence 9 times, soon to be 10)......true to my peripatetic form, i am now, if not entirely biased against big cities, am pretty damned close to being biased against big cities.
small, folksy, and yes, even boring beats the bright lights. here's why:
- if you're bored, it's your fault, not your town's. boredom is less a function of nothing to do than it is of you not using your imagination and finding something to do. go do something nice for someone else. no town is so small that it doesn't have people in it who need something nice done for them.
- try having lemonade and warm, homemade gingersnaps on your front porch in downtown L.A.
- it doesn't take all sunday morning to read a small town newspaper, not even on sunday. put down your fancy new york times and latte and go to church instead.
- nothing that really matters in life is more present and abundant than in a small town - or even a village. because what really matters in life isn't art (nice as that is), it isn't haute cuisine (nice as that is), and it isn't intellectual stimulation. it's you - getting out of your egocentric self - and connecting to floyd the barber. and especially to otis, the town drunk.
now, go be nice.
