Although I revel in my self-identification with the moose, my chosen Sherpa animal guide and I have our differences. Aside from physical stature, our respective preferred habitats represent the most notable of our dissimilarities. Whereas one most readily encounters moose in the cooler climes of North America, the urban jungles pockmarking the eastern seaboard encompass my ideal stomping grounds. But, it goes much deeper than that; I harbor absolutely no affinity with untamed nature and lack any desire to experience the supposedly great outdoors. In fact, I feel and hear the crunch of pine needles under my boots only after friends and loved ones placate me with sufficient amounts of a Scooby Snack equivalent.
Even in those circumstances, I am extremely reluctant to interact with nature more than necessary. What’s so appealing about tromping through fields and forests filled with blood sucking, welt causing, disease carrying, and otherwise absolutely irritating ticks, fleas, and other insect vermin? In fact, I’m very much like Melman, the giraffe in Madagascar, when he encounters real nature—as opposed to the manicured, well-coiffed version that surrounds his Central Park Zoo home. When I find myself dealing with the hirsuteness of the predominantly untouched wild, I frequently start thinking, and sometimes even exclaim, “Ah! Nature! It’s all over me! Get it off!” With the exception of the occasional jaunt on a well-maintained trail in a state or national park, I just lack the capacity to appreciate any form of nature that differs from the well groomed and impeccably maintained version of nature found in places such as Philadelphia’s Fairmont Park.
Alternatively, I find it incredibly difficult to imagine anything more pleasing than walking through the narrow man-made canyons of Manhattan or Center City Philadelphia—especially Philadelphia, but that’s a subject for another time. In my years of inhabiting the varying types of environments sculpted by homo sapiens, I found that nothing simultaneously energizes and soothes me as thoroughly as strolling through a vibrant metropolis. Furthermore, the paradoxical notion that nothing could be more “natural” amuses me in ways I cannot properly verbalize. Yet, there it is. In every way that you can measure, I am a creature of the city.
As such a beast, my ideal solitary afternoon involves exploring the kind of urban streets that typically only see direct sunlight during the noonday sun. When left to nothing but my own devices, I can imagine few things better than trekking into the heart of a large, bustling city and walking to the various shops and locales I wish to visit. As I meander from one destination to the next, I can randomly change direction and arbitrarily decide when to enter a pub and enjoy a hard cider. It’s possible for me to make that cider all the more enjoyable by either reading a book or writing upon the laptop that I nearly always carry in my backpack as I stroll along those streets.
However, similar to the cruel twists of fate envisioned by those who first named and described the mythological Greek gods, goddesses, and heroes, I currently reside in the outermost exurbs of Northern Virginia. In fact, I’ve called the region home for close to eight years now—and this immediately followed living in the suburbs proper for a nearly identical period of time. Despite the overall happiness and contentment I feel with my life, if feasible, I’d instantaneously rectify this significant detail. Alas, other factors make such a revision impossible for the time being. As a result, I will continue to experience the whole damn morbidly uncivilized act of driving miles from bookstore to favorite local pub so that I may spend a few hours of proper solitary time, while lacking the same rewards for randomly changing course just to see what I might encounter.
In another twist of irony worthy of explication by a Greek chorus, my extended stay in the vast sprawl of Northern Virginia changed how body reacts to its surroundings. See, I suffer from a form of physical urticaria. In other words, I break out in hives when my body undergoes unusual levels of stress. “Stress” covers a rather large array of conditions. In addition to emotional stress, there are numerous physical triggers as well—spending time in environments I rarely encounter is one of them. Thus, a couple hours of walking in any urban setting will cause my body to react as if a swarm of mosquitoes just used me for an all-you-can-eat buffet. After living in or extremely close to Philadelphia and New York City for most of the ‘90s, it only took a couple years of suburban living to become deacclimated to proper urban surroundings. Because my visits to major cities occur, on average, once every few months, my ideal Saturday afternoon in the urban jungle that beckons to me represents the surest and quickest path to a direly needed dose of Benedryl.
I hope that someday in the indeterminate future, I will once again find myself basking in the specific city environment that I enjoy most, thus removing the need to carry pharmaceuticals as I meander along Market Street, guided by the anticipation of spending an hour or two in Book Trader. For now, I content myself with the knowledge that at this time of my life I currently reside in the place that best accommodates the wide array of factors I must properly balance. I refuse to say that the fates decreed my exile to Northern Virginia—mostly because I believe that the Greeks erred in their dramatic depiction of that unyielding cosmic force. Nonetheless, I harbor no doubts that one day I will return to my natural habitat and enjoy aspect of it.
That is, unless I’m wrong and the Greeks indeed accurately depicted the fates. In which case, I may truly well be screwed.
The Road to Mooseville 
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