Saturday Morning In Uptown

A few years ago I wrote an essay for one of my classes that attempted to answer the question, “Why do I travel.” Although I've always loved traveling, it was a question that I'd never really thought to consider and writing the essay was thought provoking. To me it was like asking the question, “Why do I breathe?” Because if you're living and loving life, that's what you do. I love taking in a new place, figuring out what makes Sydney different from Boston. Berlin different from New York.

One of my favorite ways of immersing myself in a new place is what I've come to think of as a deríve – basically a long, meandering walk. Typically I'll have couple destinations in mind, I'll know the rough direction I need to travel to make it from one waypoint to another, and then I'll just set off. See what adventures waylay me along the journey. On my first weekend in London, I set off from my bed and breakfast at around 7 after a full English breakfast of tomatoes and beans and sausage, and didn't get back until long after dinner. By the end of the day, I'd been to Covent Garden, Leicester Square, Westminster, Trafalgar Square, the Tate Modern, and Shakespeare's (newly rebuilt) Globe Theater. I had even climbed to the top of St Paul's Cathedral to admire the vistas of the city. Many of those destinations were places that I returned to over and over during the two years I lived in England, and the mental map I built on the weekend was the foundation upon which I built all the rest of the knowledge I eventually acquired about the city.



But for all the spatial knowledge that these walks provide about a new place, I feel like the real soul of a place is revealed in the chance encounters you have along the way. That same weekend in London, I took the Tube from near the end of a line into the center of the city. When I got on, I was nearly the only person in the car. A couple of stops later, an older gentlemen got in and sat down a few seats away. We sat in silence for a few stops, both of us watching the scenery of brick suburban row houses flow past us. Suddenly he turned to me, and said, “You never know what will happen in the blink of your pretty little blue eye.” Then he turned back forward, and continued on as if he'd never spoken.



I took in his statement with a little bit of confusion mixed with a fair bit of delight. Although I didn't know what to make of it, I felt like the encounter had somehow given me a small glimpse into the soul of the place. I would never see the man again, but I felt as if he had set me off onto my adventure in London. I felt connected and rooted and even though I knew the feeling was illusionary and ephemeral, that chance encounter opened my eyes to see the mystery, energy, and timelessness that I now associate so closely with the city.



All this to say that I truly value the chance encounters you have while getting to know a new place. I was reminded of this a few weeks ago when I went to visit Uptown for my weekly photo expedition. I came early on a bright spring Saturday morning. Tim once described the Uptown area to me as having all the atmosphere and energy of a campus area, but without the campus. After getting to know the area myself, I completely agree. In afternoons and evenings, most of the people walking around look like the too-cool-for-school kids – studiously not fashion-conscious. It's lined with popular hang-out bars and cafes, and I imagine it's pretty busy on a Friday night.



But on this Saturday morning, the streets were nearly empty. I like to wander around places like this early on weekend mornings. In some places, you see people out cleaning the streets, and vendors getting their wares ready for sale. But in Uptown, I saw homeless people, vagrants, transients. I'm not sure what the respectful word was, but they all seemed kind. When I stopped a waited for a bus to come because I wanted a particular shot, one man came over to make sure I was okay. He said that I looked lost.

But an encounter I had with another man was what made me start thinking about the man that I met on the Tube in London. When this man in Uptown walked up to me, I nearly turned him away before he could even speak. I usually prefer not to give money to individuals on the streets, and there was something of entreaty in his face as he walked up to me. But it was a beautiful day and there was also something joyful in his face, so I decided to listen to what he had to say. He was a homeless man, trying to earn money to pay for his medication to treat diabetes. He said he doesn't like to ask for money directly, saying he'd rather earn it through poems or a song. Would I let him earn some money? At first, I tried to stall, having not yet decided what I wanted to do. He offered to show me a good place to take a picture, and so we started walking down the block. While we were walking I decided to give in to the moment, and told him I rather hear a poem than a song. Gospel or Love? Gospel. With that he started reciting a poem and his steps subtly changed cadence to match the rhythm of his verse. I wish that I could remember the words of his poem. I am no judge of poetry, but his recitation had soul and sincerity that brought joy to my morning. After he pointed out the photo viewpoint, I gave him some money and a bus ticket I had. I was all the richer for our encounter.

I'm not sure what my time with that man can tell me about the soul of Uptown Minneapolis, but I know that I had a happiness and a fundamental belief in humanity that morning after meeting him.



A note. This essay is very, very belated. I took the photos over three weeks ago. When I started the writing to accompany the photos I took, I ended up going a completely different direction than I intended, which (I suppose) is one of the joys of this forum. I've included some pictures from a 2006 trip to England that Tim and I took, just to set the mood. If you want to see other photos from that trip (and a few others), go here. And if you'd like to see the rest of my photos from my morning in Uptown, go here. I'll be publishing a few more posts very soon, as I've got photos from two other photo expeditions.