Time Flies and Floats.

It's been six -  yikes! - years since my first post on this blog and four since my last.  Part of me wishes I could say my life has changed monumentally. That I've been around the world and back. The truth is, I'm still the same person. My life is different, but not drastically so - and I'm back in Bridgeport.  I returned over a year ago and am "sweating it out" until I leave again.

Whenever I think that living in Bridgeport is really rough (taxes, traffic, etc.) I remind myself that being a business in Bridgeport is terribly tough.  The local Staples office supply chain store closed down about a month ago. Now we have to drive to neighboring towns (with a fraction of the population - but whose residents are less likely to drive to Bridgeport) for a copy job.  I guess Bridgeport residents are not considered office supply "material". This makes sense because there is a myriad of issues to consider when looking to cultivate commerce and produce profits in this sparse economic landscape.  

For instance, the recently closed high-end downtown grocery store geared toward the class of elite loft-dwellers and corporate day-jobbers seemed out of step with the mass of working class, minority, residents. The smattering of lawyers and bankers who get off and on the commuter train are unlikely to spend money in the same city where they earn a living. Ironically, so are the people who live here. For those who are gainfully employed commute out of Bridgeport to work and are just as unlikely to spend money in the same city where they sleep.  I've heard of bedroom communities but now I am becoming more aware of the "bedroom city" and the contradictory nuances of this consumer profile.  

A Pretty Gritty City

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
-A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes-

Many, many, years ago, when I was a freshman in college, we studied the works of the great American poet, Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967). "A Dream Deferred", his poem above, was the basis for the title of the famous Lorraine Hansberry play.

I remember sitting in English 101 (I think) and reading this poem as a bright-eyed, aspiring lawyer, trying my darndest to understand Hughes' words. What does it mean to defer a dream? Somehow, at eighteen, dreams were what drove you forward, through high school, into college, and soon on to a brilliant career as either a lawyer, doctor, chief executive - or all three! Somehow, I just could not fathom what it was to have a vision of life that seemed constantly out of reach.

The answer came clearly to me a few years later when I graduated from college and moved back to Bridgeport. Just four years before, this was a city I struggled to escape. Upon my return, it was a post-industrial hinterland that, strangely enough, had a warm embrace. Much of the warmth could easily have been the result of the smoke from the local Resco plant, but I think it had more to do with the overall sense of melancholy in the city. Inspite of the pervading weariness, no one seemed depressed - depression was for the suburbs.

Everyone was too busy pursuing their dreams: Dreams to pay the rent on time; dreams to keep up with the taxes (or the Joneses); dreams to either buy their own home here or to finally move out of this city. Dreams of finding a job or of getting an education. Dreams of having a "good" school to enroll their child in or dreams of actually electing an honest candidate to municipal office.

So, what does happen to a dream deferred? . . . It moves to Bridgeport.

Global Warming

Yesterday's weather seemed rather unusual for the first day of February: It rained, torrentially! It was tempting to complain about the rain but, in pre-global warming years, this would have easily been a snow storm.

I'm not a meteorologist, so I can't guarantee that yesterday's deluge was anything more than weird weather, but it does seem a little disturbing. Usually, at this time of year, I would be wearing my snow boots, not rain shoes.

NPR had a special this week about a number of Dutch architects who are developing homes that can float in the event of a flood. Their concepts are based on the perspective that climate change presents just as much opportunity as it does difficulty.

In the same vein (or is it, "vane"?), I'm realizing that each type of weather offers a reason to look at the world and life in a different way. For instance, I absolutely hate walking in ice-cold rain, but compared to driving in a blizzard. . . I'll take it! Not to mention the fact that I got the opportunity to sport around those cute green rain boots I purchased a few months back at Marshall's. I was dreading the fact that I would have had to wait all the way until Spring.

That being said, opportunity is one thing and reality is another: Without thinking, I put on my plain black snow shoes when I left the house to go to Stop & Shop. The ultimate weather-fashion moment described above, exists only in my mind.