What's all this, then?

I'm going to be spending two weeks in Paris this month. In preparation, I've been reading up on the history of the city, its many splendid buildings and beautiful streets, and the countless writers who have lived there. My own writing has been somewhat sluggish for the past six months or so, and I am hoping to find inspiration there. So my first purpose for this blog is to create a place where I can write some of my notes about the city.

Le flâneur is a wanderer, an urban walker, one who observes the life of a city but maintains a certain detachment. (La flâneuse, of course, is the female of the species.) Some connotations of the word also suggest a curiosity about the city and a desire to experience it fully. This idea appeals to me. In fact, one thing that appeals to me greatly about Paris is that the central part of the city is so walkable; it is the quintessential flâneur habitat. My happiest memories of my childhood involve walking with my mother through Riverside, California. (Too bad we moved to Phoenix when I was 7. The walking just wasn't the same there.) Over the past 15 years or so, I have been able to adopt a largely (but not entirely) pedestrian lifestyle.

Walking gives me time to notice and enjoy all the quirky little sights and sounds of life in a college town and to become familiar with the ebb and flow of energy, conversation, and motion across campus and downtown. In addition to observing human nature, I see a certain amount of wildlife (birds, chipmunks, squirrels, and the occasional deer, muskrat, or possum; a friend even saw two ducks paddling across a flooded walkway this spring). There is a lot of nature to be found even in the city; when you think about it, the much-maligned weather is nothing but an ever-present manifestation of it. In years of walking, I have come to know my favorite trees, gardens, and yards, and I have my favorite hangouts, indoors and out, for reading, writing, and eating. My second purpose for this blog, then, is to use it as a place to write about urban nature (human and otherwise) and about the pleasures and politics of human-scaled neighborhoods and transportation at human-scaled speeds.

Welcome.