Lost in the City

The City of Richmond is no ordinary city, landscape wise. It seems different from the neighboring cities. It is not a contiguous, whole piece of a city. Bart trains run through it. Amtrak trains ply through its terrains. Highways 80 and 580 traverse its landscape at different points.

Even more, many a cargo caboose passes through it intermittently, going through their daily rigors to and from the Port of Richmond. Also, there are hills and little mountainous terrains that dot its landscape, not to mention the ramps of 80 and 580 so much so that no one big avenue goes unhindered from one end of the city to the other, nor any of the crisscrossing little roads. There are always roadblocks, detours or impediments, both man-made and natural. As a result, the City has become a dichotomy of different areas loosely connected to each other, but otherwise inaccessible from some points. Call these areas enclaves, for lack of a better word. Richmond is absolutely nothing like the city of Chicago where you can get a straight shot of a ride or drive from east to west, or north to south, and conversely, or drive along its perimeter nonstop just staying at the fringes of that windy city.

One morning, on the way to work, I was musing, meditating, or probably praying. I was intense on whatever I was doing (internally), but otherwise oblivious of the surrounding. You probably guess by now that I missed my turn to bring me to my office. Frantic (or annoyed), I made some bold attempts to turn here or there, trying to redeem myself. To no avail. The roadblocks, dead-ends, foothills, one-way signs, railroad crossings, no-left turns, no-u-turns, and other detour signs showed their ugly faces at every turn. Yes, I lost my bearing! The more I drove, the farther I drifted hopelessly from the street I wanted to turn left on because of the detours. I could not even retrace my way to 80 as a last resort.

To make a long story short, I was meandering for 45 minutes, a little depressed and somehow both chuckling and muttering “How did this happen to a seven-year vet-of the city?” Here is the irony (or insult to injury) – right after the get-go of my unfortunate miss-the-turn incident, I found myself tailing a dilapidated, hoary cargo truck with a sign screaming in big letters, Eureka! Is that a funny coincidence or Murphy's Law? Others would philosophize it as the spice of life. I rest my case (or humiliation!).

But wait. Perhaps there is a spiritual side to my fiasco. Did not the Preacher in Ecclesiastes say all things can happen to all people any time, and that the Almighty designed it that way so that no person would know what would happen next in a stream of events in his life? Res ipsa loquitur. EDL March 20, 2009