Mar 13, 2009 16:36
Downtown Greenville is not what your average city-dweller would consider dangerous.I mean, it is one of the bigger cities in South Carolina, dwarfed in population and popularity only by Columbia, Charleston, and Myrtle Beach (as far as I know). And yet, walking what is maybe two blocks from a local coffee shop to the nearby parking garage, I am aware of how easy it would be for any number of passers-by to attack and mug me, or worse.
I'm not saying that I want this to happen, or that it ever seemed like it was about to happen, even. It's just that I'm paranoid, and I realize how rediculous it likely is for me to feel this way in one of the most well-lit and decently populated areas of Greater Greenville, the Piazza Bergamo. I am on the smallish shide of average, and I don't consider myself to posess any of the sort of features that might cause a complete stranger to remember my existence. Cops wouldn't be passing around photos of me to anyone would could respond, "Yeah, I remember her, I'd remember that face anywhere."
Not unless the next sentence out of their mouth was, "When you stumble on a vaccum of unremarkability like that, it makes one hell of a lasting impression."
Beyond that, my collection of frumpy sweaters and even frumpier scarves, not to mention my rediculous mommy diaper bag/briefcase/purse combo do nothing to serve up style. You know those bags: responsible-looking shoulder bags containing 25 pounds of wallet, makeup, notepads, Kleenex, diapers, pacifiers, literary entertainment for mommy, pill bottles, snacks and small toys for toddlers, all of the paperwork necessary for filing this year's taxes, a small collection of cd's... True terrors of accessible accommodation. Most mothers I know have something of the sort, when they get to that point where they realize that while diaper-bags are cute, they suck for errand-running, when you already have to juggle kids and purse anyhow. And speaking of styles, the type of makeup I always wind up wearing (if I'm lucky enough to find the time to remember to put it on at all) only accentuates and emblazons hellatious mediocrity on my face: toning down both my latest bout of hormonal-upsurge acne as well as the freckles that barely pepper my cheeks--which, combined with my wider, soft jawline only serves to make me look like an underage pregnant soccer mom pretending to be a thirty-five year old college student. I'm only 22. Talk about an image crisis.
Anyway, back to not being mugged in Greenville.
When I was younger, say, a fifteen-year-old goth kitten, or an eighteen-year-old feminist art kid with a penchant for flowing skirts and flannel, I roamed Greenville alone without any fear-- except maybe of not having any cash for parking fees or getting stuck talking to one of those old and vaguely aggressive guys passing out Jesus tracts. And I was smaller back then--a good thirty or so pounds lighter than I am now (if you consider my pre-pregnancy size). For an underweight kid with absolutely no self-defense skills, I was oddly fearless. Some of this was even before I had a cell phone, when my parents thought that I was probably too young to handle such a responsibility and were definitely not aware that their daughter (at fifteen, anyhow) was roaming the "big city" (to people living in the intensely rural areas around Greenville, this really is the concept). Hell, even after I had the cell-phone, I didn't bother to charge it decently most of the time. It was there, working or not. I'm sure had I needed it in an actual emergency it would've made a great projectile, if only I didn't throw like a girl who didn't like sports.
I made regular trips, mostly on weekends (when the crazies are out)--wandering the streets for hours, finding little hiding places in alleys and under bridges and whatnot where I might be able to sit down and write for hours. I carried my first digital camera down there, taking pictures of everything that struck me, when I went through my artist phase. I haunted the big graveyard at the Episcopal church on Church street at all hours of the night--ALONE. I smiled at strangers, engaged in random conversations, petted new dogs.
Nowadays, only a handful of years later, the thought of being by myself downtown doing any of these things, or even so much as sitting in that coffee shop by myself with my book, is enough to make me get antsy. It doesn't matter if it's nighttime, midafternoon, whatever.
Alright... I lost it. That's all I had. R&R so far? KTHXBAI.