I went down to the local at 2:30 this afternoon, just in time for happy hour. A pint of robust porter for $7, cheesy bread, and a pleasant hour and a half of just sitting around in the neighborhood bar and grill. Assorted folk on the rail, a couple of tennis moms at a bar table, a gang of high school bros congregating around fries in a booth. It felt like the neighborhood spot, the place where folks come for everything. It doesn’t hurt that it shares a parking lot with a Starbucks and a grocery store, all within walking distance.
And then, two miles away and easily bikeable, is the actual downtown. Alternately in another direction two miles away is the actual downtown of the next town over. There is a cozy village here, as materially accessible as Shepherd Market is from the Park Lane. And if I’m willing to hop a Lyft, there’s the Duke. Or Trials. Or O’Flaherty’s and Dr Funk, the latter of which is the closest thing to Mr Fogg’s without going up to the city.
Walkable is a big part of it. I need to be walking more. I need to be going to the gym again, doing something to get the kind of exercise I did on this trip. But I also need to embrace the cheeky pint. Yes, bird never flew on one wing, but instead of depending on an afternoon or evening, I need to be willing to pop out for an hour for just the one, the way I would (and did) in London or Amsterdam or elsewhere. And if I’m going to do that, then I need to be downtown more, availing myself of the no less than four perfectly good options for “just the one.”
I have my stuff. I have all the stuff I could need. I have books, podcasts, fresh earbuds at last. I even have some stuff I didn’t have after the 2022 trip, like an indoor pub night space at home and a local church community to connect with other people. The lesson from this trip is that until they run a light rail down Foothill Expressway or install a canal next to the back patio at Fibbar Magee’s, I have all the pieces I need to live locally the way I want to in Europe. The trick is just to do it. If a few bucks is the price of perfecting the illusion, find someplace else to skimp and spend that few bucks.
Break out the lightweight blazers, the cotton caps, and put the socks back in a drawer until November. Spring has sprung.