It took me 24 hours to figure it out, but I really am a lucky person.
My girlfriend Loraine was watching an interview over the weekend with Noel Gallagher, the brains behind Oasis, and the interviewer was throwing a series of rapid-fire questions at him. He would be given two items, and he had to choose which one he would give up forever if he was forced to pick. Most of them were goofy and musically oriented (“The Stones or The Who”? “Fender or Gibson”?) and gave Gallagher fits having to choose, but there was one he had no problem with—the city or the beach? He rattled off “the city” quickly; as it turns out, he doesn't even like the beach. The question, though, stuck with me. If I was forced to choose between giving up either the city or the beach, the two places I love to be in more than any other, I don't think I could. It's be like Sophie having to choose between her children.
There's just no good outcome to that question, and no one—NO ONE—should ever be forced to have to make that horrid decision.
As I've written in here many times before, I am an urban creature. I need concrete and I need people and I need the feeling of being a part of something, even in the joy that is 2020. If you were to force me to live in the woods or in someplace without a sidewalk I probably couldn't handle it. And as I've written in here before, my dream job is being a (highly paid) beach bum. So the thought of having to choose between the two just wouldn't work.
As I was running this morning I came to a realization. I realized that, living where I live, I would never have to make that choice. I would never have to choose between being in a city or going to a beach. I can have my concrete and sidewalks and people, and I can have my beach. I can have them at the same time. In fact, I've had them at the same times many times, as I leave work or my apartment, and hop on a bike or take a short walk down to McCarty's Cove or South Beach. I actually live in a place where I can be in a city AND a beach at the same time.
I live in a place that has BOTH of my versions of heaven. How many people get to say that?
I mean; seriously—how many people get to say that? How many people get to be in an urban core of a city and yet have a beach a few seconds away? Very few. And of those few, how many actually take time out of their day to appreciate it? I mean, even I think I've been a little guilty of taking the fact that Marquette has great beaches for granted; after all, they're just part of what makes this city so wonderful. Maybe it took that question to point out just how amazingly lucky we are here. Maybe when you're pondering having to choose between two incredible things, your eyes are opened just a little bit more as to how lucky you really are.
I hope I never, ever have to answer that question posed to Noel Gallagher. But in a way, I'm glad he was asked.
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