urbanmennonite.com

The best definition I’ve seen of what urban living is all about:

being forced to deal — every day — with people who are unlike you*

That pretty much sums it up. The difference between home and here is that at home, the people that are different from me aren’t really all that different from me. Odds are, we still share 7 out of 10 basic characteristics (class, gender, education, sexual orientation, cultural background, race, religion, political affiliation, etc et al), particularly since home is so … well … Mennonite.

And if they are really different, I can avoid them so much more easily than I can here in the city. Because here I have to shop, eat, work, ride and interact with people who may only share 2 out of 10 characteristics.  And most days, it’s really hard to avoid people … you have to consciously work at not interacting (as in, not leave your house for 24 hours).

The question is, would I miss that interaction if I ever had to leave … and most of the time, the answer is yes (it’s just hard to remember that when I’m riding the D8 with every single sick old man in DC at 10pm at night).

*Source unknown because when I want to find something specific on the internets, of course I can’t … because even Google fails me sometimes.