Comfortably numb in St. Louis

On walking, shopping, air conditioning, and CVS

Sep 05, 2023

Love notes from Siel is a newsletter about love, writing, and the nomad life from me, Siel.

Dear friend —

I miss walking.

This happens to me whenever I return to the U.S. Yes, it’s still physically possible to get to places on foot here, but it’s just not done — certainly not in St. Louis, where I’m visiting my sister this month. When I told her I planned to walk the half mile to the nearest CVS, she squinted at me.

“Why?” she asked.

This was on a beautiful 80-degree day, in a safe neighborhood with wide, pristine sidewalks. My sister had a point though. Walking around here isn’t terrible, but it isn’t particularly joyful. I trudged down the street alone while cars whizzed past me on six-lane streets. There was nothing interesting to look at — just gigantic parking lots and freeway underpasses. I ran into zero other pedestrians before stepping into the drugstore, where I was greeted with a blast of icy air.

Life in St. Louis is a big change from life in Barcelona, where I returned to for the last couple weeks of August. There, I could walk a few steps to get kebabs or Korean fast food or ripe kiwis right on my block! I could pick from a dozen coffee shops within a three-block radius! If I wanted to venture further, the subway was ready to whisk me away. You never had to wait at a platform for long!

That said, the customer service is just better in the U.S.

“You’re coming down the best aisle!” said a cheerful CVS employee as I walked in. She’d just finished decorating the Halloween section and gestured me through it. “Pick up some cold medicine then your chocolate and candy —”

The A.C.’s better in the U.S. too. Barcelona was hit with a heat wave while I was there, and the apartment I was staying in did not have central air. This forced me to meticulously plan my days around cool public spaces — but I discovered even the museums and malls in Barcelona seemed to ration their A.C. use, cooling the air only enough to keep you from dying of heat stroke but not quite enough to stop you from sweating profusely. One hot evening we went to see Oppenheimer, primarily for a three-hour respite from the heat. We entered the theater with a jumbo tub of caramel corn to discover the theater was a sauna.

Still, there’s like zero chance of getting shot at the drugstore or mall or cinema in Barcelona — a sense of safety I have to say is very nice to have —

The U.S. is very good at making life feel convenient, so long as you can afford to live in a safe neighborhood with a reliable car. My sister lives in a high-rise condo with a gym, rooftop pool, and its own little gift wrap room. Last Saturday she and I drove to one of those gigantic shopping centers you find in pretty much every American city — the kind where Target and Trader Joe’s and Ulta Beauty and PetSmart and Total Wine & More all right next to each other. Each store was powerfully air conditioned! We found everything we needed — PopSocket! Birthday cake ice cream! Gel eyeliner! Fresh figs! — in one go, carted it out in big red shopping carts, stuffed it all into my sister’s Kia Niro (all electric!), drove home, and zoomed up the elevator — effectively reducing our interaction with the outside world to once a week.

Of course, this also means people don’t really get to know each other. There’s more de facto segregation in the U.S. — by race, class, age, cultural differences — and much fewer unplanned social interactions. It feels like each person or family lives their separate lives in their individual temperature-controlled living space —

I feel troubled about this — and yet I also feel very comfortable —

I’m in St. Louis for the month to celebrate my sister, who happens to be renowned neurologist. She’s being installed as a named professor at the research university where she works! While here I hope to spend lots of time with her and my niece and nephew, buckle down on work and writing, and find a sense of rhythm for my life in general. I also hope to find nice places to walk to and from.

What are your hopes for the fall?

Love notes from Siel

Comfortably numb in St. Louis

On walking, shopping, air conditioning, and CVS

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