On the 1950s and Not Fading Away

This might sound crazy, but I feel like I somehow traveled back in time to the 1950s and returned home safely to 2017 at some point during this year, reaching the conclusion that I like things way better the way they are today.

As a Millennial, I'm not averse to admitting how much cultural appropriation that sentence contains. These days, everything is feeling like a mashup of something else. Originality seems more desirable than ever. 

I sometimes wonder if people won't look back on our generation and perceive us as the ones who had history at our fingertips and could revisit any period if only we weren't so distracted by our computers and phones. We're like the people who visited the moon but couldn't step off the spaceship.

As a child of the 1980s (I was born in 1984), I know as much about the '50s as the following decade, and my parents aren't talking (What was it the flower children always said? "If you remember anything, you weren't there?")

When I say I feel like I traveled back, I don't mean I woke up one morning in a poodle skirt, listened to the Ronettes and hung out with my friends at the drive-in eating hamburgers and drinking milk shakes while honking for curb service, although that does sound pretty fun.

Nor am I referring to President Trump or the rumors that to "Make America Great Again," he meant opening the vault of one of the most misogynistic, racist and materialistic periods in American history and making it now.

What I mean is that in my mind, the 1950s offer an eternal perspective – the midcentury blitz that will always be preserved in people's minds as a time when life moved in stereo, when we didn't just have good but great fun with our friends in fabulous cars on sunset boulevards.

In this sense, the 1950s were retro before they even happened, as much a style or essence as a period in time.

I enjoy hearing stories from people who survived the decade. Lately, my husband has been practicing the Buddy Holly song "Not Fade Away" on electric guitar, and today, I looked up some of the lyrics to the famous song:

"My love a-bigger than a Cadillac

I try to show you and you drive a-me back.

Your love for me a-got to be real

For you to know just how I feel

A love for real not fade away."

I noticed that this is one of the most hopeful and cynical songs I've heard. Not only is Buddy Holly comparing his love to a Cadillac, there's an undertone that the love might not survive, while the Cadillac will. The song is hopeful in that it's about love, but it's also very materialistic.

That's how I imagine the 1950s actually were. They set a standard based on materialism and then challenged people to transcend it by love alone. 

Could that be done?

Yes, but for how long? The '50s lasted only a decade. Not very long in the grand scheme of things, and since I tend to think we measure history not by decades, but by centuries and millennia, the years probably felt much smaller when they were happening.

Why is this?

I think it's because they're tangible through an ever-growing nostalgia – the kind that helps keep drive-in diners like the Bun 'N' Barrel on Austin Highway popular in 2017. It's also a way of commemorating the past while keeping it accessible and current.

The Bun 'N' Barrel has been offering burgers and barbecue to San Antonio patrons since 1950s from its location at 1150 Austin Highway.

Does it really matter what time we're traveling back to – or if we ever actually go on the trip – if we know we can go there anytime?

I think technology has taken this idea a step further. I think we might be witnessing a key moment when we can actually glimpse another time period and decide if we want to venture there. 

Skipping ahead to the '60s – a time when people seemed to try to forget everything they learned 10 years earlier.

From what I've heard (not much,) the '60s counterculture might actually have been as spectacular as people who were there say it was. The free love, walking around barefoot and not caring about showing up to work wearing the previous night were real.

In the '50s, when people said you looked tired, it was a euphemism for "You look like shit." In the '60s, no one cared. You could show up to work with tangled hair and dilated pupils. It didn't matter. You were a living, breathing, organism. You had roots and a history, and every day you were growing, expanding, into an even more organic being.

It's no wonder that when we watch TV shows like "Mad Men" that pay homage to the '50s, they're doused in alcohol. Alcohol is an antiseptic, and the '50s were defined by cleanliness, bright, gleaming surfaces and interior lighting.

People couldn't help getting in touch with their grittier side a decade letter. They wanted to discover what they'd suppressed or forgotten about by aspiring to such rigid ideals.

When I looked up the word "decade," I learned that its Latin root, beyond the Greek meaning "the root of ten," is literally "a falling away," a decay.

I wonder if when Buddy Holly wrote "Not Fade Away," he was heeding the inevitable decline of certain ideals to follow. Is the song an antidote not only to the decadence of the era, but decay itself – the tumult of the '60s and the events of the previous decade that led to them?

In America, we go through many iterations of history. Our values change constantly. We've often seen things in black and white and transcended the racism and vitriol that marks our history, only to revisit it all over again.

Why does this happen? Why revisit a period that we'd supposedly put behind us?

I didn't travel back to the 1950s, but I have my answer. We all want the best of both worlds. We don't want to fade away.

So why am I afraid that now it's going to come at a higher cost?

Featured photo: Oil painting, "Burger in the Clouds," 20 x 32" on canvas. (Photo and painting copyright Undercover San Antonio.)

The Dog at the San Antonio Missions

During a recent Sunday trip to the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park, I stopped at Mission Concepción. I'd come to take some pictures of the light at sunset – practice for a series of paintings I was completing – and since it was still too early in the evening, I killed time by ambling along the walkways and reading the information tablets.

Dragonflies buzzed in the ambience, their long bodies zigzagging across the deep sky overhead. A man walked on the sidewalk, listening to music through headphones. A young couple made out on a blanket spread in the grass. Nothing too out of the ordinary seemed to be happening.

Suddenly, I saw a dog approaching from Mission Road. The dog ran across the street, peering around nervously, and he sat down in the grass next to where I stood. The dog was slender, with fine black fur and burning red-orange eyes. Since he wasn't wearing a collar or name tag, I couldn't determine if he was a stray.

I debated whether to call Animal Care Services to report him before realizing it was 6:30 and that the organization closed at 5 p.m. on Sundays. I looked around, wondering if someone would be coming for the dog.

As we stood together, the driver of an SUV pulled into the parking lot. Four people climbed out, along with two dogs of their own on leashes. They started up the sidewalk, taking in the scenery excitedly, as if it were their first time there.

When the visitors saw me with the dog, they started toward me, the dogs in the lead with their tails wagging. One of the dogs came up to the one sitting next to me and sat beside him like they were instant companions.

"Aww, he wants to be friends," one of the women said. I offered a wan smile. 

"He isn't mine," I said. "He came over here from that neighborhood."

She looked surprised.

"Oh."

"Have you ever seen him?" I asked.

"No, I haven't."

"I think he might belong to someone. If so, they're letting him run loose. That doesn't seem right. He could get hit by a car."

"Sorry," the woman said, shrugging as she walked away to rejoin her friends.

I stayed at Mission Concepción for another hour until the light began streaming across the field, throwing blue and violet shadows against the limestone – the colors I'd made the drive to the South side to see. I lifted my camera and began taking photos, and at one point, the dog sat in the grass as if he'd posed for a similar picture countless times before.

Though I've never owned a dog and don't know much about their behavior, I know there's a reason they're referred to as man's best friend. As I walked around the perimeter of the Mission snapping photographs, the dog followed me, stopping where I stopped and staying close behind.

When I finished, the sun was going down and everyone else had left but me and the dog. I looked into its eyes, glowing amber-red. I wished I could adopt him and take him home with me. Still, we had a cat at home, and no experience taking care of dogs.

Sometimes I wish things were different – that there weren't stray cats and dogs without owners wandering the streets of San Antonio having to be taken to clinics to be euthanized. Then, I try to think back to a time when human beings and their pets were undomesticated and roamed the earth like beetles, armadillos and coyotes. Animal control and neutering wasn't an issue then. Life and death overflowed. The idea that death was a part of life was less an idea than a reality, as it is in nature.

Since moving to San Antonio, we've taken in a cat whose previous owner died. Though the owner lived at the apartment complex for 20 years and fed her, the cat, 'Annie,' roamed outdoors during the day. I spoke to the woman a few times, and she claimed the cat had another owner before her. I remember the April morning four years ago when I first saw Annie's face appear outside our window.

This made me realize that even with a safe home, the cat often went outside during the day and at night. Rather than being a strictly indoor cat that ate canned or dried food and sunned itself on window ledges, Annie, given the option, wanted to be an indoor and an outdoor cat.

After taking care of Annie for the last six months, I know that some animals won't ever be domesticated. I read in a book that a feline's environment in the first six months will determine its behavior for the rest of its life, and with multiple owners, it's more accurate to say she lives at the apartment complex rather than in any one apartment.

Still, I know it's morally wrong to let Annie be an indoor and an outdoor cat. She's a threat to the local avian population. Since cats are predators, they kill for sport as much as for survival, and I feel irresponsible for the birds, beetles and moths that have died on my doorstep.

On the other hand, it seems equally wrong to force a wild animal to live indoors. The room would be torn to shreds, and since I consider it insane to remove a cat's claws, much less, neuter it, we've struck a kind of harmony in letting her go outside during the day and hoping the steady supply of cat food will dissuade her from killing birds.

Though this may sound irresponsible, it's the truth. There is no way we could domesticate Annie, and I'm honestly happier knowing she's content.

Still, standing there with the dog that night, I seemed to face the consequences of my decision in not knowing where the dog came from. I felt bad leaving it there alone, and even considered asking someone who lived at one of the neighboring houses if they'd seen the dog before or knew who took care of it. Glancing around, however, I realized it was almost dark and that I had to be getting home.

As I walked back to my car, I was surprised to see the man in the headphones whom I'd noticed walking around the grounds earlier. Though it was twilight, I could make out the features of his face. He was tall and wore a t-shirt with a space ship traveling to Jupiter printed on the front.

I watched in disbelief as the dog whom I'd befriended in the last hour ran over to him, lowering itself on its haunches into the grass right next to him.

"Is that your dog?" I asked.

The man removed one of his earbuds and peered toward me.

"Yes," he said.

"You let him run around?" I asked. "Aren't you afraid someone will take him?"

The man shrugged.

"No one will take him," he said. "He's mine."

"He's supposed to be on a leash," I scolded. "You're not supposed to let dogs run loose. I thought he was a stray. He could get impounded, or worse."

The man shrugged again, looking a little ashamed.

"I live nearby," he said.

"Don't you have a yard?" I pressed.

"I don't have a yard," he said. "He likes to run around. He hasn't got anywhere else."

I watched as the man started across Mission Street again, the dog following in his footsteps. The man seemed to sense that I was watching him, and he turned on his heels, glancing back in my direction.

We stared at each other across a seemingly endless divide that hadn't existed a few moments before.

"It will be OK," he said.

Creative Native: From Conventions to Comics

Outside the new entrance of the Henry B. González Convention Center, looking west on Market Street.

As a San Antonio native who moved back about four years ago after growing up in Indiana, I recently started a new position working in tourism for a local nonprofit organization, Visit San Antonio.

As a representative, part of my position involves wearing a red jacket and working at the new-designed Henry B. González Convention Center as a customer service representative, providing guests with information about nearby hotels, restaurants and attractions.

Outside the Henry B. González Convention Center.

Visit San Antonio is a new organization. 

Before last October, it was part of the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau, and all employees worked for the City of San Antonio.

Last fall, however, the City granted Visit San Antonio nonprofit status, and it's now a separate entity that benefits from the City's 9% Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT).

A 1.75% tax collected by Bexar County, a 6% state tax, as well as visitor, industry, history and preservation programs also support the City's tourism industry.

2% of the City's HOT allotment goes toward the Convention Center, which underwent a $325-expansion that was completed in January of 2016.

The Convention Center now sports a new entrance on Market Street, 514,000 square feet of contiguous exhibit space, the 54,000-square-foot "Stars at Night Ballroom," a 5,000-square-foot outdoor reception space for more than 700 guests, a new park stretching between the Center's west facade and Alamo Street and a direct connection to the River Walk and Hemisfair Park expansion.

It's a big deal for San Antonio because the Convention Center attracts new conventioneers, clients and tourists to downtown and the River Walk. Of the 7% of the Hotel Tax that stays in City revenues, 35% of that money is given to the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

It's an equally big deal for residents, however.

One of the things I've learned about San Antonio since returning here is the city has many sides.

The San Antonio that hosts conventions and trade shows to downtown is not the same San Antonio that attracts people to events focusing on art and history, such as the upcoming San Antonio Zine Fest from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct 7, at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.

The exhibit will showcase work by national and homegrown creators, vendors and panelists and will feature workshops for adults and kids.

The first official San Antonio Zine Fest poster, designed by Regina Román.

As a painter and writer who tries to attend as many of San Antonio's homegrown shows as I can, I really hope I can make the show, but in the meantime, I've realized that working in San Antonio's hospitality industry has created a strange overlap in my professional/personal life.

I know that people who go to the Convention Center aren't necessarily going to be interested in attending a zine fest on the West side, or braving the mid-September and early October heat to see many of the nearby murals done by local artists.

San Antonio is located in a subtropical climate zone, with temperatures soaring into the nineties throughout the fall months. This makes it a fantastic challenge to convince people to venture outdoors during what are considered prime months for outdoor recreation and relaxation in cooler cities.

As a "creative native" – a term I use to describe creative people who either grew up in San Antonio or have a strong tie to the place – wanting to excel in a creative field here and touting the city's visitor appeal aren't mutually exclusive goals.

The new 54,000-square-foot "Stars at Night Ballroom" at the Henry B. González Convention Center.

Romantics have described San Antonio as a city comparable to Venice or Spain, with broad, scenic vistas and the preservation of a certain mystique.

Despite these strong words, there's always a certain stigma that cities supporting tourism are transient places with little to offer residents.

The River Walk – ever the economic boon – can't seem to shake its reputation as a place for cheap, carnivalesque thrills conducive to pub crawls and one-night stands, and the highways soaring over downtown San Antonio are notorious for reckless motorists and the deterioration of the city's historic neighborhoods.

San Antonio is embroiled in constant controversy about how much should change and what should remain, and it's not difficult to fathom how a poet or a painter's rendition of San Antonio won't be the same as a businessman's.

After exploring much of the city on foot, I've realized how important it is to focus on building walkable communities in many of the neighborhood nodes of activity and to help counteract the negative effects of gentrification.

Hemisfair Park is a great example of this. Once the site of the 1968 Worlds Fair, it's become a kid and pedestrian-friendly campus with splash pads, fountains, public art, trees and shade. Architects have redesigned it to showcase the old acequía to demonstrate how it contributed to the development of the San Antonio Missions and the city's architecture.

Hemisfair has evolved with the economic and social times. Once the site of a railcar crash, the rail line is now removed. So is the zipline that once carried people over the Japanese Tea Garden in Brackenridge Park.

As individuals and companies have made careers out of safety and risk management, cities have followed suit, redesigning public spaces to make them as much an exercise in safety and urban planning as an escape.

Much has changed in San Antonio in just the last 25 to 30 years, and since moving back and experiencing life here, I've often wondered why it's so hard for people to embrace change in a city that plays host to a constant stream of national and international guests.

Walking along East Commerce Street in Dignowity Hill, about 10 minutes from the Convention Center.

I've learned that as much as people want to preserve the city's historic landmarks – Alamo Plaza, for example – they also want exciting and radical change.

In late August, just days after my husband and I ventured downtown to watch a movie in Travis Park hosted by Slab Cinema, City officials removed a statue and a Confederate war memorial at its center after loud voices proclaimed it supported racism.

A move in May by the San Antonio City Council to pass the Alamo Master Plan redesigning Alamo Plaza as a public space – a plan that would involve removing vehicular traffic and repairing and relocating the Alamo Cenotaph, among other changes – has been four years in the making, if not much longer.

It ignites debate about the future of what is both a battle memorial and a major tourist attraction in the heart of the city.

Alamo Plaza: Tourist attraction, battle memorial, or both – and what does it mean for San Antonio?

As I continue my work as an attaché for Visit San Antonio, I hope to see positive change that aims to keep San Antonio a unique city separate from Texas's other major metropolises but that also lives up to all the excitement it offers to visitors.

San Antonio Day Trips: Bonham, Houston and Third Streets

The thermometer read 84 degrees at 10 a.m. this morning, and I soon left home to take photos for a series of blogs about San Antonio I'm collectively calling "day trips."

My idea is to take pictures and publish them with a blog post showcasing the unique aspects of the City's different neighborhoods.

Today, I'm focusing on the City's East Side and planned to photograph some of the buildings along the unique triangular intersection of Bonham, Houston and Third streets near the Crockett Hotel in downtown San Antonio.

I plotted my route as I drove downtown, parking on a side street and tucking my water bottle into my bag. I deposited a few quarters into the meter and peered around. Dozens of pedestrians were ambling about with their families, riding solo on bicycles, drinking beer at restaurants and enjoying the sights and sounds of San Antonio despite the rising temperature.

My husband and I returned to San Antonio about four years ago, and I've noticed there doesn't seem to be a consensus about how to dress for the weather here. In fact, people sometimes wear clothes for another season. Hey, it's 50 degrees in January. I think I'll wear shorts and flip-flops to the ice cream shop and save my long sleeves and pants for the middle of August!

As crazy as it might sound, this freewheeling attitude characterizes many of the things I love about San Antonio. The downtown architecture is an anachronism, and rightfully so. Nowhere else would I expect to see buildings like these, or houses preserved so beautifully as in the King William Historic District the way I remembered seeing them during my last visit to downtown.

The mix of classical architecture and modern amenities will continue to draw transplants and young people from other cities to San Antonio, so the City of San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation should strive to preserve its unique character this way.

By mid-morning, downtown was abuzz with activity, and I began wandering around to photograph of some of the streets and architecture I envisioned for this blog, beginning with the picturesque Bonham Exchange, an ornately-decorated structure evocative of the Victorian era.

The historic Bonham Exchange located at the intersection of Bonham and Third streets.

Though this wasn't my first time seeing the building, I was impressed by the layout of historic buildings and urban design.

In addition to the scenery, all the moments of my trip seemed perfectly timed and coordinated. When I passed the History Shop across from the Alamo, where Genesis frontman Phil Collins delivered the first items in his growing collection of Alamo artifacts back in 2014, a car drove by with its windows rolled down, the radio playing the group's hit song "In the Air Tonight."

I've heard the song hundreds of times – probably more than any other song on the radio – but it was like a whole new experience listening to it in the heart of downtown San Antonio near the Alamo, a place the singer once declared that he loved.

It was as if I were stepping into a movie about San Antonio's living history just by visiting this spot.

I continued west, passing a friendly-looking guard standing near one of the limestone walls spanning Alamo Plaza along Houston Street, and stopped across from the Oro Restaurant and Bar, located in the historic Emily Morgan Hotel, to look up at the building's ornate stone carvings. I counted the stories as I gazed up the side, where gargoyles stared down at me.

I paused to pull up some information about the hotel on my phone, remembering how I'd wished that downtown San Antonio had more benches for people to sit and relax in the shade. The sidewalk across the street from the Emily Morgan Hotel would be the perfect spot for one.

Luckily, the City's cup overflows with online articles and history dating back to before these buildings were constructed, and the search quickly turned up information about the hotel's history right on its website.

Built in 1924 by famous architect Ralph Cameron, it was constructed to be the Medical Arts Building on Alamo Plaza. It is 13 stories tall and influenced by Gothic revival, featuring pieces of cast iron and a copper roof with wood ribs. The gargoyles lining the building each wear an expression portraying a medical ailment – a fitting touch since it housed doctor's offices and served as a hospital for patients from 1924 to 1976.

The building was converted into modern office space in 1976 and was transformed into a hotel less than 10 years later, but I was still interested in learning whom the hotel was named after.

Emily Morgan, the site explained, was a 20-year-old black indentured servant who was captured along with other members of her household by the Mexican forces on April 16, 1836 during the Texas Revolution.

While not much is known about her life, a British traveler named William Bollaert wrote an entry in his journal in 1842, which some say planted the seed of Emily's legend that she distracted Mexican General Santa Anna in his tent while a Texas army led a charge against the Mexican camp during siesta on April 21, 1836, leading to battle victory for the Texas army in less than an hour.

The History Shop, located across from the Alamo, is popular with tourists and houses some Texas artifacts donated by musician Phil Collins.

Even less is known about the woman's life after the Revolution. There were disputes over whether she was actually freed. It's believed that she returned to her home state of New York and that she may have been the inspiration for the song, "The Yellow Rose of Texas," written after the war.

As I thought about Emily Morgan, I wondered how different cultures had come together here before, and all the history that's been written and unwritten in order to preserve these structures and the people living behind them.

San Antonio always felt timeless to me, and in this part of downtown, east seems to meet west, the buildings taking on the look of railroad depots and saloons out of some old movie.

The designs of the intersections are also interesting, such as this one located at the crossing of Houston and Third streets, looking west toward Alamo Plaza.

Houston Street meets Third Street as it wends east through downtown, where this historic building, distant hotels and a skyscraper present a profile of a city with many contrasts.

Because of the way the road curves, a pedestrian gets a view of multiple pieces of history running right alongside each other. Though I couldn't identify the two-story building in the foreground, it looked like it was built in the Italianate, Greek and Victorian styles similar to the houses on the South Side.

I walked along the median where Houston Street narrowed to a one-way lane and decided to turn right once I reached Alamo Street. To the right, I saw Molina's restaurant and the sign printed on the side of the Alamoesque building, "Thank You For Your Business."

The road running east along Houston Street toward Bonham Street – a panorama evoking the Wild West, though it leads to San Antonio's East Side.

I decided to complete my day trip by visiting a place I've always wanted to see but never visited: The Hays Street Bridge located on Cherry Street beyond Interstate 37.

There, I could climb to the top of the bridge for a panoramic view of downtown from above.

I walked down the sidewalk, passing several art studios featuring iron works and sculptures, where I glimpsed little purple flowers peeking out from beneath the foliage. San Antonio is home to some of the most exotic flowers, such as this purple passiflora, a favorite for many different bees.

A bee feeds on a purple passiflora, also known as passion flower, in a downtown garden.

I passed a large, five-story building that is being renovated, hearing drilling and mechanical sounds echoing from within. I stopped to peer through the gutted windows to see men working inside.

Finally, I made my way past Chestnut Street, heading south down a long sidewalk past a beer garden. Traffic roared over my head as I walked toward the bridge. A quaint old railroad sign marked the entrance next to a park bench, and I started up the ramp.

The first thing I saw was a sign declaring a no-graffiti ordinance, and that the bridge was under video surveillance.

It was a way to the top of the bridge, but it's a great view once you're there. The bridge is wide – it once accommodated automobiles and wagons – and trains pass beneath it near the new Alamo Beer Co.

Now open to pedestrian and bicycle traffic, people are doing all sorts of things on the bridge, from meeting up with friends to taking selfies, doing yoga, exercising and making videos and documentaries.

I ran into two young women who were visiting the bridge to hang out, drink a beer and take pictures before it got too hot. We sat and talked for a while. One of the women was from San Antonio, while the other had lived here for eight years but was planning to move to Seattle. The rent in downtown San Antonio, she explained, had become too expensive for a lot of people, who were now moving into low-rent houses with friends or back in with their parents.

As we talked, we noticed a woman at the opposite end of the bridge who had set up a camera and a tripod. Much to my surprise, she was wearing a sweatsuit and dancing in the now 90-degree heat. We watched as she hopped up and down to a beat coming out of her small, portable speaker. The woman moved for another twenty minutes before packing up and heading down the bridge's other side.

Something about seeing the woman's high-energy dancing in the heat made me happy. For one, the Hays Street Bridge is a cultural beauty with a majestic view, and I thought of the opening scene from the movie, "Flashdance," where Jennifer Beals, an aspiring dancer, bicycles across a bridge to a steamy, electronic beat.

It was that sort of dynamism that I hoped would always exist in San Antonio, a place full of energy and excitement regardless of the season.

If that meant sporting sweat pants and long sleeves to make a music video beneath the blazing sun, then so be it.

The Hays Street Bridge looking west toward downtown San Antonio.

Double Negatives: When Nothing's OK

So, in case you haven't noticed, things haven't been making no sense lately.

Or maybe they've been making so much sense that they seem nonsensical even when they aren't. Either way, I know that at the end of the day, when I turn off the lights and pull the covers up to my chin, I'm pervaded by a strange new feeling about the future that I can't remember having before:

Everything's either going to be fabulous or it's going to be a disaster.

Ever since Trum became President, the world that exists between something fabulous and a disaster – also known as the "OK" world – seems to have gone bye-bye in my mind and in the words and expressions of many people around me.

What ever happened to OK?

I call him Trum because I once heard a third grader utter his name loudly and courageously without the "p" at the end. Some kids seem to love Trum, probably for the same reason that they appreciate many of their favorite cartoon characters: He's colorful, he makes faces at people and he's not boring, so they can relate to him even if they can't spell his name.

Besides, the "p'" too closely resembles the emoticon that people text to each other when they're being cheeky, so anytime I see his full name, I can't help wondering if it's a subtle political strategy of sticking out one's tongue.

I realize it's not kind to poke fun at the P, and besides, he's not the subject of this blog, anyway. The subject is double negatives and what can be learned from nothing being not OK. I mean, OK.

Anyhoo, back to it. What is a double negative? Here are some examples I found:

I don't feel like going nowhere.

I can't get no satisfaction.

When someone sends me a text message that says "I'm not here," and then I delete their phone number.

Pandas on my shoulder: Which one's good and which one's bad?

People who know me know that I've suffered from anxiety and a lifelong struggle with mild – and sometimes not so mild – manic depression, a.k.a. bipolar disorder. As people with the same problem have told me, it's a hell of a time waking up feeling calm and relaxed and not knowing if you won't become a maniac in a few hours.

But in time, I've learned to deal. One of my coping mechanisms is the realization that suffering from the lifelong anxiety that comes with the disorder makes it easy to help people when they panic.

It took me a while to learn that what I once considered a weakness actually embodies the secret strength to comfort others. Sort of like what Trum has done for religious fundamentalists who want their own TV shows about their home in the middle of the woods where they live with their eight children. It's a hopeful thing that their dreams, too, could one day become a reality.

Now, make no mistake: The road from vicious, self-defeating paranoia to earnest helper-in-chief has not come without effort. Case in point: A couple days ago, I was pumping gas and staring off into space when the video screen above the pump suddenly came to life.

It appeared that someone – or something – had installed a new service for customers: The ability to learn a new word while trying to satisfy their vehicle's endless thirst for fuel. And that wasn't all. This particular word didn't seem to be any word, but my word, as if it were chosen just for me.

The word was "tarantism," and the screen quickly displayed the definition as "an extreme urge to dance resulting from the bite of a spider."

Well, I hadn't made it halfway through reading the message before I was shaking in my boots. I became instantly paranoid, worried that someone was watching me from inside the station, or, even worse, a secret agent of the government in some remote control room had beamed in from the station headquarters to confide in me one of my deepest, darkest secrets.

But then I did what smart, rational people tell me to do when I'm feeling upset: I started taking really, really deep breaths. Soon, my heartbeat returned to normal. I replaced the dispenser on the handle, returned to my car and drove home to look up the word online for a more thorough definition.

Since then, I've pondered a potential career as a roadside helper. Sort of like a roadside mechanic, but for people who are having nervous breakdowns instead of car problems.

I realize it's awful to think this way – that I might capitalize on other people's suffering. But shouldn't it be considered positive thinking that if something bad's happened to everyone, we're at least all in it together? I think the common idiom is "Misery Loves Company."

Our cat: Not worried about Trum.

Somehow, though, I don't find it so comforting. It seems that Trum's inflamed rhetoric has somehow turned this once-reassuring aphorism into a double negative of its own. Much to my chagrin, not only are people miserable, they don't seem to be finding solace in the same ways.

Me, either. I find myself constantly on edge, drawn to the news like it's a drug, afraid of reading, but even more terrified to look away. I'm left with a pervasive feeling of alienation, and in its aftermath, the odd sensation that Trum is somehow my friend, that I should do what John F. Kennedy once encouraged his fellow citizens to do: Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.

So, the time has come, I've decided, to be a better person, to do, as President Kennedy once said, not what's easy, but what's hard. I am going to write Trum a letter, if for no other reason than to reassure him that nothing's going to be OK.

If you're reading this, you might be interested to know that thinking philosophically is not just a fun pastime for me. It's also a way to try to understand the world and make some sense of things that don't. If everything really is as it appears and the President of the United States is a figurehead who presents a face of the U.S. to the rest of the world, then how bad can things really be?

Well, pretty bad. But my cat reads the news, too, and she doesn't seem overly concerned.

San Antonio: More than Meets the Eye

When I moved to San Antonio four years ago, I felt confident the city was everything it appeared to be: A gorgeous southern town that seemed to always smell like flowers, where birds chirped and bees buzzed, and where, much like the scene pictured above, everything co-existed peacefully.

Now, I'm not so sure.

I stepped off the plane at the San Antonio International Airport back in 2013 like any other fresh-faced Millennial: Energetic. Open-minded. Curious. Ready to take notes. As a lifelong Midwesterner, life in a new city where palm trees grew on every corner and there was no harsh winter seemed like paradise.

My husband, Steve, and I moved into an apartment on a street with an idyllic name in Alamo Heights that was shaded by beautiful live oak trees. It had a pool and friendly neighbors, including a calico cat who has become our best friend. The apartment was a quarter mile from Steve's office and within walking distance of three coffee shops, Central Market, a tire and automotive shop, several banks and other amenities.

The greatest thrill for me, however, came from knowing I was in a new city and that I was anonymous.

Aside from a few friends of our family, no one here knew me, and I brimmed with excitement when thinking of all the people I was going to meet. Moving to San Antonio was a sign, I told myself. I was in the right place at the right time. The best part of my life was about to unfold, and I was going to live each day to the fullest, flexing my strength and resolve at every opportunity.

My bike parked near some mesquite trees in Olmos Park.

And I did.

All that happened, and then some more. Only it hasn't turned out quite the way I expected, and one of the reasons for that is San Antonio is more than meets the eye.

It's no secret this city, like much of the rest of the South, is rising in population. According to the U.S. Census, San Antonio's population grew to 1.49 million people in 2016, and this May, the Bureau reported it had the highest population growth of any city in Texas, with 24,473 people moving here between July 1, 2015 and July 1, 2016.

A view of the downtown San Antonio skyline, taken from Mahncke Park.

Now the seventh-largest city in the U.S., San Antonio is filled with extraordinary sights and attractions, steeped in a rich history that meshes past and present. The streets of downtown are like a carnival for the senses, with taco trucks and carts serving paletas and raspas to dazed visitors ambling along the limestone walk of Alamo Plaza.

San Antonio pulses with late night-energy. It's one of the few places where you can see a horse pulling a Cinderella carriage down Crockett Street next to multiple lanes of traffic and an historic Spanish Mission.

By the way, I'm not a fan of the horse-drawn carriages in downtown San Antonio. I don't think horses should have to breathe exhaust and clod on pavement to pull around people who would be better off walking. Horses should be romping in pastures. But I know they're part of the city's pastiche, so I accept that inconvenient reality.

It's all for the tourists anyway, right?

The River Walk looking east beneath Houston Street.

Well, sort of, except that tourism and hospitality are a major industry here – in fact, one of the top five industries. Travel supports more than 130,796 jobs in San Antonio,  meaning that one in every eight jobs in San Antonio depends on travel and tourism, according to the San Antonio Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The jobs at the restaurants along the River Walk involve hard manual labor with long hours and low pay. My first job in San Antonio was working for a family-owned catering company, and it turned out to be some of the hardest work I've ever done.

I'd like to say I learned right away that San Antonio is about much more than appearances, but the truth is, it took me a while.

Maybe it's because it is such a beautiful, colorful place that the stories that existed beneath – about the great passion and commitment that people put into San Antonio each day – seemed so subdued.

After six months at the catering company, I was starting to feel like I was stranded on a desert island, and not just because I ended up dehydrated at the end of a shift. I used to go to the grocery store afterward and marvel at all the fresh produce, picking up a peach or plum and thinking about the work that went into getting it to that shelf. It's easy to take that sort of thing for granted.

I'd worked in restaurants since high school, so I knew what it felt like to stand on my feet and run back and forth all day. The fatigue I experienced working for the caterer, however, was much stronger than any I'd known. No, I explained to my manager at the end of the shift, I wasn't tired of being pretty, I was tired from an exhausting job that I couldn't comprehend someone doing every day, let alone for years on end, with no prospects of long-term employment, health benefits or a salary.

Because people spend so much time on their feet in San Antonio, it strikes me as curious that it's not a more pedestrian-friendly place. Since I moved back, I've heard various complaints from visitors and natives that it's not a walkable city.

That's never stopped me from getting around on foot.

I've taken the sidewalks all the way up to the H-E-B in Lincoln Heights and down to the Pearl Brewery. There are parts of Broadway with a sidewalk on only one side of the street where I have to cross to the other side. Traffic can be daunting and sometimes scary, particularly at rush hour. However, it's always been possible, and despite my age and warm-weather attire, no one's ever bothered me. In fact, the last encounter I had while out walking was a cyclist who tried to steal a loaf of bread out of my shopping bag as he whizzed by in the opposite direction. He did not get the bread.

For these reasons, it took me a while to understand that when people say a place isn't pedestrian-friendly, they mean they don't think the City considers it a high priority.

In order for a place to be pedestrian-friendly, it has to do more than just build the sidewalks, bike lanes and corridors that will make up the infrastructure, but also design urban planning in a way that encourages people to lead a more active lifestyle. San Antonio is largely built to be traveled by car, with patches of walkability here and there, and mostly around areas that cater to people from out of town.

A crosswalk located at the corner of Broadway Street and Circle Drive in Alamo Heights.

Having said that, San Antonio has an invaluable treasure in the River Walk. Thanks to President Franklin Roosevelt's project carried out under the Works Progress Administration, downtown San Antonio not only has plenty of sidewalks, but a unique vista running below street level that provides shade, picturesque scenery, shops selling handmade gifts and Tex-Mex food for all.

The River Walk, while not a key destination for locals, is great, and the newer segments stretching north along the Museum Reach and south toward the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park are perfect for a quiet, relaxing walk away from the throngs of people eating at the restaurants along Commerce and Houston streets.

I've seen the city's walkability improve in leaps and bounds in the last four years, from new crosswalks and bike lanes along the streets surrounding Trinity University and the Japanese Tea Garden to the completion of the Avenue B corridor, enabling people to travel from Brackenridge Park all the way downtown. Once the city links all the paved trails in the Howard W. Peak Greenway Trails System that are dispersed and already semi-connected around the city, it will be possible to cross town on foot or bicycle without having to mingle with traffic.

The reason I place such importance on walkability is because it's one of the things that led me to change my initial impressions of San Antonio.

San Antonio will always be a great city, no matter what, with something for everyone to see and do. Their destination could be a show at one of the city's many historic theaters, or public art or street performance on Alamo Street. It could be an anti fake-news protest held by a local arts organization such as the Urban-15 Group at a conference of the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists, or another event that encourages people of all citizenry to be active in national politics.

Maybe it's a burlesque show in the Deco District, or a party in a pavilion in the King William Neighborhood, a First Friday retreat. It could be a man joyriding in his1967 Chevelle Super Sport with the windows rolled down and spewing exhaust that gives a whole new meaning to vehicle idling.

San Antonio could be much more environmentally conscious, and new Mayor Ron Nirenberg has made air quality a priority since he was City Councilman in District 8 on the northwest side, sponsoring a vehicle anti-idling ordinance in 2016 that was unanimously approved by the San Antonio City Council. Until the city gets the rail system that it deserves, it's going to be an uphill battle to try and fight some of the powers that be who want transportation and infrastructure to remain essentially the same for years to come.

On a lighter note, San Antonio is home to a thriving music scene, with bands journeying from Austin and out of state to play at clubs along the St. Mary's Strip and at new venues such as the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.

Acrobats climb horizontally across the side of the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts.

"Los de Esta Noche" performing during Urban-15's annual Incognito event. 

San Antonio has always seemed to me like a great place to be an artist or performer. The San Antonio Burlesque Fest continues to feature an exotic repertoire of stars in its annual Burlesque Festival, featuring a Friday Night Showcase Sept. 22 and a Saturday Night Spectacular the following night. Another local troupe, Stars and Garters Burlesque, will host a Babewatch party at the Blue Star Arts Complex on Saturday, July 22.

Satan's Angel, the Burlesque Hall of Fame Legend, performs at the Friday Night Showcase.
(Image courtesy of San Antonio Burlesque Fest.)

So with all these great events going on, and such a constant thriving scene, I tried to understand the feeling of transience I recently experienced sitting on the outdoor patio at Central Market and talking to a community organizer who works to garner support for religious institutions, nonprofit and civic groups on the City's west side. 

I have dance practice two nights out of the week that runs until 9 p.m., so Central Market is one of the few options I have for grabbing a late-night bite to eat on the way home when I know there's nothing in the refrigerator. That's OK, though, because it's a great excuse to sit outside and enjoy the warm night air and some delicious food. 

The two of us sat and talked for hours, and even though the store closes at 10 p.m., no one kicked us out for lingering after closing time. Part of our conversation was about how even though we both felt the city was pretty mobile, there really weren't a lot of places where you could just amble up the street at this hour and stop in for a drink or bite to eat, other than a bar.

Central Market is really the only place between here and downtown where you can pull up a chair and eat al fresco without feeling pressured to leave right at closing time. That's the sort of thing I think we could use more of here, along with a public transportation system that makes it easier for everyone to hop on and off to get where they're going. Make the city more open and more mobile.

As we sat noshing on our modern fare, our eyes gleaming hopefully as we discussed what our futures might bring, I had a feeling of futility that made me gasp. It was because I thought about us being there so late at night when everyone else was at home or in bed. I tilted my head back – I explained to my new friend that I'd been nursing a stiff neck lately – and stared up at the ceiling fans rotating overhead.

Maybe despite everything I'd seen and written and explored, what I really needed to do in San Antonio was to try to relax and exist, without constantly worrying about everything.

I used to believe in predestination, that we're all born with our lives decided and that it doesn't really matter which choices we make or which god we pray to. But I've changed my attitude about that. I've gotten to know people here. I've gotten lost downtown many times, but it's never changed my love of walking there.

I took the picture of the horse and carriage about a year ago when my friend, Angela, and I drove to Alamo Plaza for a game of Pokémon Go, the popular game that people can download as an app to their iOS or Android device that allows them to use GPS to find the mythical Pokémon.

Hundreds of other people were in the plaza that night hunting for them, and while we both found our share hiding behind palm trees and along street corners, the trip actually reminded me how much I love San Antonio – and am excited for the tricentennial celebration!