I have been procrastinating this post for months! The problem isn’t because I’m not passionate about it, but because I’m so passionate about it that I want it to be perfect. I seem to suffer from some sort of atelophobia, the fear of imperfection. The point is that I realized this morning that if I don’t bite the bullet and “just do it,” it will never get done. And I really, really want to get it done. Perfect or not.
Several months ago, I was reminiscing a Women in Art class that I took while I was at the Florida International University. I’ve always appreciated art, but that class opened my eyes and helped me to understand it. One of those days several months ago, I found myself bored and Googling “mural art projects” and up popped a local mural art project, right here in San Antonio’s Westside.
I was immediately curious.
The Westside?
New to San Antonio, in researching areas to live and play, I never really ever heard anything great about the West side. In fact, as I asked around the only thing I did hear about the Westside was negative: to stay out of it.
I took that advice with a grain of salt. I mean, come on. Really?
I am not naive. I understand that there are areas of any city that are more dangerous than others, but I also think that a lot people tend to over exaggerate the amount of danger that is present because they are 1) unfamiliar with the area. 2) Feel uncomfortable as the minority. 3) Don’t like looking at things that are not the typical, recognizable, bright & shiny Americanized suburban neighborhood. The unfortunate thing about this is that when you do this, you miss out on a lot of interesting.
My ease in neighborhoods like this I think stems from my having been a military brat. Although I didn’t fully learn this lesson until I lived in Miami, Florida for four years.
When Tim was accepted to medical school at the U, we didn’t have much time to search for a place to live. In fact, I think we may have driven down the road maybe a mile or two and came across this brand new building, right on the Miami River. Five minutes later we were getting the grand tour of the building and falling in love with a corner unit with an amazing, sweeping view of the city. We ended up buying the place because of a manatee that just so happened to be swimming up the river as we were peering down at it. The realtor couldn’t have timed it better.
It was not on the beautifully landscaped, Royal Palm tree lined Brickell Avenue. It was not in the trendy Coconut Grove. It was not in the historical and grand Coral Gables. It was not in the glam of South Beach. The condo was on the Eastern edge of a part of town called Little Havana, on dirty and heavily littered South River Drive, lined with old abandoned buildings, and sun-wrinkled crab trappers who lived with their malnourished, unleashed dogs amongst their traps that they built into shelters.
But amongst all this was character. Those trappers? They were nice enough, always trying to talk to us in Spanish, commenting on our dogs, Blackie and Rubio (or as we know them, Wally and Bert). There were small, mom-n-pop Cuban stores and restaurants. One of our favorite past-times was just walking around the neighborhood. It was like living in a completely different country. We loved getting Cuban coffee at the window (the way to order things on the go) down the street. We loved going to José Martí park with the dogs and chancing upon some manatees noshing on… whatever it is that they were noshing on. We enjoyed, on occasion, buying a $3 plate of either Cuban or Nicaruaguan food that would feed the two of us, twice. One of the benefits of living in an area like this is that there is a lot of space to create film without disturbing the city. We enjoyed watching, from our balcony, the tapings of such shows & films as Burn Notice, Transporter 2, Miami Vice and Marley and Me.
My point is that even especially in neighborhoods that are socioeconomically challenged, there are treasures to be found.
Which finally (hallelujah!) brings me right back to San Antonio’s Westside.
