People of Walmart

I was born and raised in Vista, California. It took me 23 years to get the hell out of that town, but only took seven more years for me to get back (Loretta). Six years ago my wife (who is also from Vista) and I, expecting our first child, left the wilds of urban San Diego and bought a house in our provincial, conservative, suburban, comfortable, troubled hometown, which we swore we'd never do. We're still there. We love the house. We love being close to our families. Sometimes we even think we've made our peace with Vista, and could just as easily stay here forever. But in our heart of hearts we both suspect that's probably not true.

I work in Los Angeles and have a four hour round-trip commute every day. If I'm going to keep doing this job, or another job in this industry, we know we'll have to move to LA sooner rather than later. We've been confronting that reality in our own ways a lot lately and I think it's safe to say that net-net we both see the idea as a positive one. We worry about uprooting the kids, we worry about not being as close to our parents, we don't like the idea of leaving a house we've put so much love and elbow grease into, but those are details rooted in the big Fear of Change that nags around the margins of any major life decision.

The truth is, we'd rather be in a real city, we'd rather our children grow up in a place where they're exposed to a wide variety of cultural stimuli, we'd rather be closer to the epicenter of the kinds of arts and ideas that our respective professional and creative lives are centered around. We could stay in Vista forever and be perfectly happy, of course--it's not a life and death decision. But we both think that's probably not the path for us, at least not right now.

It's more complicated than it should be, for me at least, because I still haven't quite worked out the way I feel about my hometown and what it represents. Some days it feels to me like a very sad place, a tree-lined pit of despair and pale compromise, a breeding ground for mediocrity and sameness from which no beauty or greatness could ever spring. That's how I saw it when I was 15, to be sure, and I cultivated that perception well beyond it's sell-by date, in large part to make me feel better about myself. But I'm not 15 anymore, I'm not holed up in my room on a Saturday night listening to Smiths records and reading Fahrenheit 451 and cursing the football team. I'm a grown-ass man.

And, yeah, OK, the town still doesn't have a bookstore. The closest thing we get to a foreign film at the local movie theatre is Inglorious Bastards. The biggest culinary news of the decade was the opening of the California Pizza Kitchen down the block. The sheriff's department seems to open fire on Hispanic males for the crime of walking out of 7-11. I could probably score crystal meth at the bus stop on the corner. There are 3 Walmarts within a 10 mile radius. I can't count the number of "Sportsmen for Bush" bumper stickers I *still* see on huge trucks tooling around town on any given day. That's all true.

But does any of that really matter? It's all in what you choose to see. Some days I can get over myself, I can put that 15 year-old kid's voice out of my head, and I can look around me and see real beauty and real depth and real love. I can see people who are just trying to get through the day and still taking the time to help each other. I can sit on my patio and listen to the birds and smell the neighbor's barbeque and in those moments there is nowhere I'd rather be.

And often I experience disgust and love for my town in almost the same moment. The other night I was coming home late, after a particularly stressful week that had kept me out of the house and away from my children far more than I would have liked. I promised my oldest son that I would bring home a very specific Star Wars toy that happens to be sold exclusively at Walmart. Please understand that my objections to Walmart are wide and deep, philosophical and visceral, political and sociological, deep-rooted and pervasive. In other words, I hate everything about Walmart and I have vowed repeatedly to never set foot in one ever again. But my kid wanted a toy, and my love for him trumps both my wavering principles and my weak stomach, so I sucked it up and made the stop.

I held my nose and looked at everyone in the store with my usual mix of disdain and condescension, secure somehow in the belief that I was out of my element, that I was not one of these people, that I was just a tourist with a mission. I found the toy, made my way past the throngs to the 10 Items or Less aisle and took my place in line. The man in front of me, who had a cart with what I'm sure were exactly 10 items, shot a glance back at me. What the fuck are you looking at, I thought. Mind your own business. And then he turned around again, and insisted in a gentle and kind tone that I go ahead of him. I protested but he wouldn't have it. Maybe he could tell by my body language that I was in some kind of pain and needed to get out as soon as possible. More likely, he was just being kind. He was just a gentle and dignified man committing a small and simple act of kindness. When I left I thanked him, and called him Sir, which is a word I never use, at least not in earnest. But I meant it. I was genuinely moved by the gesture, and I was filled with shame for my ugly thoughts about the people around me. You're a fucking snob, I thought to myself. Why do you need to dehumanize these people just to make yourself feel better about your own value? Why do you need to pretend that you're not one of them, that you don't come from where you come from? What fucking shame is there in going to Walmart, or living in Vista, or not wearing vertical stripes to try and hide your morbid obesity? What the fuck is your problem, chump?

Well, I know the answer(s) to that last one. I've got a lot of problems, clearly, and the vast majority of them, like this one, are entirely of my own making. And none of them are Vista's fault.