Some towns, you meet them, you fall in love, you never want to leave, you're enchanted. All the rest of your life after you've met, you're happy when you're there, and when you're not, you always harbor a (perhaps secret) desire to go back, to be with the city you love. Other cities, you meet them and you think "Well, she's pretty cool." You feel perhaps indifferent at first, but after you've been together for a few months, you start to realize a change. You're smiling more when you're together with your city. You're signing letters to the city "Love, Donald" instead of "Sincerely, Donald." You have secret places that you share, and fond memories together. You realize that a bond has developed, and maybe someday you'll leave, but you'll always look back happily, and you'll never regret the time that you spent together.
Sometimes, you'd see a town like Montpellier and think, "How could you meet this town and not fall in love?" I'll tell you one way. You get here, and you've got other towns on your mind. Towns where you know people and places. You think, "I've been in so many towns that I love, how could this one really take me and hold me?" And, for a while, this blinds you to the truth of your surroundings. That this town really is all the things you wish for from a town. Even though other towns have fit the bill in the past, this one's here, now, and it works too. After a while, you develop that slow bond, but your preoccupation and hesitation at the beginning has kept you from falling flat out in love. Perhaps that's for the best. Falling flat out in love can be detrimental; it's easy to burn out, to forget what you ever saw at the beginning after the passing of time. Platonic love, friendship love, seems to last longer.
Monday, October 18, 2004
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