Topic 181: On Recovering from a Love Affair

Carol:

Trains and Boats and Planes and Trolleys and Feet

I have never really shared most Americans' love affair with the automobile.  When I travel, I really enjoy seeing new places and watching new faces while learning to navigate subways, busses, and trains. You might say, I recovered from my love affair with automobiles by forming a new attachment to Bart and Max.  
 

Our trip this last week to New Orleans (aka The Big Easy Crescent City, Saint City, Paris of the South, Birthplace of Jazz) reminded me that there are lots of places in the US where a person can live quite happily, thriftily and conveniently without owning an automobile.  

One of the best deals in town is the day pass for $3.00 that gives unlimited passage on city busses and the three trolley lines that operate along Canal Street, St. Charles Street, and the esplanade bordering the Mississippi River, Once passengers debark   at the terminus, conductors walk through the old-fashioned car, reverse the directions of the wooden seats --no need to turn the streetcar around. 

The Canal Street line goes through the heart of the city where most of the tourist venues, businesses and major medical facilities are located. One branch ends at the   above-ground cemeteries 3 miles from the streetcar’s starting point; the second branch ends at City Park and the New Orleans Museum of Art. The walk from the streetcar stop  can be either direct along the wide, European-style avenue leading to the Museum, or indirect along the meandering, lakeside shaded paths of a park that is twice as large as New York’s Central Park.

 

The St. Charles Avenue Line advertises itself as the oldest continuing operating street railway in the world, but large sections  were closed for several years after extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina to both the tracks and the cars. The seven-mile route shows off the best of New Orleans, from the majestic homes of the Garden District to Audubon Park and Zoo to the campuses of Tulane and Loyola Universities. The leisurely progress of the streetcar affords the rider a chance to view the little details of New Orleans life that become a blur to an automobile rider: moss-draped trees sparkling with gaudy beads from last year’s Mardi Gras, ornamental statues and elegant porch swings, late afternoon dog walkers.

 

The Riverfront Line is the shortest (at two miles) and newest (built in 1988). It is a popular route that takes the Convention-goers along the waterfront with views of the French Quarter and French Market before it ends at the foot of Esplanade Avenue. A tourist can hop off just below Jackson Square and spend a couple of hours on the River itself,  lunching on southern fried chicken and chugging cold drinks on the deck of the Natchez Queen, the last steam-only operated Riverboat on the Mississippi. A cheaper alternative is the ferry that crosses from the riverfront over to Algiers on the west Bank, free for pedestrians.
 

Now that I’m back in rural  Arizona, it’s back to relying on the automobile…and the kindness of the family chauffeur. There is a bus company in town, but it starts about six miles from where I live and has both a limited schedule and limited routes, The good news is that if I really can’t recover from my love of Bart (Bay Area Rapid Transit) or MAX (Metropolitan Area Express), I can head down to Tempe and try out the METRO Light Rail--$3.50 for an all-day pass. On second thought, I think I’ll wait a few months. The day we flew back to Phoenix from New Orleans, the temperature was 114 degrees.  


Source:
“Streetcars in New Orleans.” Wikipedia

Megan:

There are many ways to recover from a love affair. Some people get in shape – I know of someone who split up with his girlfriend and started walking his dog five miles a day. He’s lost 80 pounds. A good friend of mine used his breakup as an opportunity to try new things – he bought a motorcycle, learned to ride a horse, took a pottery class. Both those guys took their pain and tried to form better selves. When I was in their situation, I chose to emigrate.

Some of my relationships only came to pass after I’d already made plans to leave the country. When the time came for me to go, we’d parted amicably and said something about the timing and how it was wrong. Only once did I hesitate and consider staying, but the relationship ended anyway. I went back to England and stayed for almost 6 years.

The problem with running away is that, in order to make sense of a strange, new place, one’s mind becomes occupied with comparing the present situation with the previous. Even after putting 6,000 miles between you and the former object of your affection, you may still find your mind wandering back to the what if’s and if only’s, replaying it all in your mind and wishing things were different. Believe me, this can really ruin your experience abroad.

I sometimes  think the best way to get over a relationship is to start another. This probably isn’t the case with everyone, but I don’t have the capacity to maintain deep and emotional connections with more than a few people at the same time. I have friends all over the world, but, with a few exceptions, my closest friends at any moment are the ones who I see the most. Simply put, I’m kind of a ‘love the one you’re with’ sort of person.

The last time I fell in love, it ended badly for me. For a long time, I thought something had permanently broken inside me. As time passed, I realized I was just young and naive and I finally emerged from that pain a better person (I hope). But I worked with that man and saw him every day. I watched him meet and then marry someone else. The week their child was born was the week I moved back to the United States. I had plenty of other reasons, which have been described at length in these essays, but those relationships bookend a very significant part of my life, and I like that there’s a symmetry to what drew me to England and what brought me back.