Memories Can't Wait

As mentioned in the previous post, I went a-moviewatchin' recently, and aside from the movies, I had quite the visceral experience, or perhaps so disconnecting that the absence of something solid and known felt visceral, or some shit like that. I'll let you be the judge.

Got out of Frost/Nixon at the West Tower and walked over to Quizno's. On my way back to the car, I let my mind roam. This is a place I know, knew, well. It and the Ridge were the two places for someone in the West End to catch movies in the late 80's and early 90's. This is where I pushed Troy up against a wall after he and Eric threw snide comments and more tangible objects and Amy and me while we were trying to watch Pump Up The Volume. This where Joe laughed his ass off at (mostly) Becky, Mike and me for picking a movie to watch while standing outside the cinema, arguing that Robin Williams had been very good for years, and that we would surely enjoy the movie that he was in. The movie was Being Human, and after checking on IMDB to see that it's final box-office was only just over $1.5 million, I believe this confirms that we were incorrect, and if you're reading this, you did not join us at the movies for this particular flick. Yes, Mikey, we wandered into an art movie. One with a $30 million budget and a Robin Williams at the tail end of a run that included Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poet's Society, Awakenings, Dead Again, The Fisher King, Hook, Aladdin & Mrs. Doubtfire, in our defense. But I digress....

So it was something I knew well but don't know well. When I visited Richmond over the last 12 years, I didn't go to the movies, and didn't often travel far from the routes to my mother's or my father's houses from the main highways into and out of town. The only thing farther up West Broad Street than the West Tower I would go to on a regular basis when I lived here back in the day was the used CD store Digits, up at Broad and Tuckernuck. Yes, I visited Borders even farther up Broad occasionally when I came to town, but the drive up and back wasn't spent seeing how the things I knew were doing. It was going somewhere new. Yes, I am aware that if Digits (and they had very reasonable prices for a college student trying to augment his CD collection, met me tell you) had not been buried by Plan 9 (which I have spent quite a bit of money in at Carytown over the last decade or so), that chain would probably not have been able to expand to Roanoke, where I enjoyed it immensely (see the post Ramble On if you are so inclined). Yes, I also have been told that the Ridge is long gone. Thanks for the update. :)

So now I am living up above the West Tower, above Tuckernuck, even above Borders, and some serious action takes place above me, at among other places the center of civilization that is Short Pump Town Center. I've managed to avoid it thus far, but I will be meeting someone there on Monday. Chris Capehart, who I have not seen in at least 15 years, found me on Facebook (again, a whole other blog post of backstory if you want it), called me, and in a couple of days I will be talking to someone I once knew when I knew these streets in a place that didn't exist when that was the case. Yeah, yeah, expansion and progress and convenience and age, yadda yadda blah blah.

Not many people who knew or know me will relate to this. Most of them now live in places far flung like Pittsburgh, the DC area, SW Virginia, Tennessee, California, and parts unknown or undefined here, but you see the point. They come back and visit their parents or some other family (at which point you are free to call my overly pensive self, heh), or the parents have moved on, either out of town or to a new part of the area. It's like I'm seeing a ghost of something that isn't dead by any means, and seems to be thriving, if that makes any sense. I'm back, for the very first time. I'm living in a new city I grew up, and knew all my life, but don't know if I know it. Or know how I should look at it, which is probably the part where visceral came out. *shrug*

The post was written while listening to "Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car" by Iron & Wine and "Oregon Hill" by the Cowboys Junkies, the latter of which is to be expected, I guess.