Walking around downtown Long Beach I realized this is the future.
Edgy. Dangerous.
Colorful.
Chaotic.
A mix of energy and despair, people succeeding and people crushed. And downtown everyone living cheek-by-jowl, the same block with high-end lofts, middle-income condos, and inexpensive apartments. In places trash in the street, and not far away, pocket public gardens.
A young woman sporting a brightly colored hijab pushing a baby in a perambulator, a young man with dreads running the length of his back walking down the sidewalk wearing a t-shirt proclaiming “imported from Africa,” two young men heavily tattooed, one with a shirt made out of a Mexican flag helping an old lady of what appears to be northern European descent up a curb, people with cameras hung around their necks speaking Mandarin among themselves. (Okay, I can’t tell Mandarin from Cantonese, but you get the image.) And along with this every food one might want right there, restaurant after restaurant. Just focusing on the taquerias, I realized we might be able to sample everything in the downtown area if we had a decade to do it.
I was talking with the overnight clerk at our hotel and he was explaining how things have changed in the area as he grew up, in Long Beach’s Thai community. He said a while back the area was dangerous. Gangs. Drugs. But, somehow they managed to shift gears, to be responsible for each other and to each other, and something exciting is happening.
Tottering at the edge, I’m sure. Could go bad. In spots it is bad. Sketchy.
Life is like that.
But, my goodness, it is exciting.
And hopeful.
Walking downtown Long Beach, I feel hope.
And, I’m putting my money on this as the future.
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