The Mirage of Isolation

Yesterday I took my bike and went "off campus" to explore.

It was great to take things slowly.  A bike pace - especially my bike pace -  lends itself to taking a chance with a side road, stopping and looking at store windows (even if those windows are in a strip mall),  pausing to walk through a garden on the local church property.   

In the middle of the ride,  I ducked in to the local library to cool off and read the current issue of People Magazine (there was no way I was handing over $5 to buy my own copy.)   The air conditioned library felt great, but I must admit I was quite a sight with my bike helmet and sweaty self.  I don't imagine anyone sat on the chair I used for quite some time after I had left...

Anyway.

Living in this 55 Plus Community, there is a gate that separates me from the greater community.   The gate is a mirage, really.  If you are in a car and can tell the guards where you are going, they'll let anybody in.  But even that mirage creates an intentional separation.  Returning to the manicured grounds, the quiet streets, the beautiful ponds and water features, there is a sense of life apart.

It's a superficial separation.  We can't live here without the resources of the town around us; within our gates we have no grocery stores, no doctor's offices, no gas stations - no nothing but houses, golf carts and recreation.   And our facilities need the income from welcoming the community-at-large to play golf, have lunch or stage a wedding. 

As a younger woman, I lived in highly diverse communities; we're talking your-car-has-been stolen-several-times-in-a-year sorts of places.   And I have worked, and will continue to, in the local schools.  But I have to admit that it is a welcome change to slip through that mirage of a gate and actually live among people my own age who come from similar economic and social backgrounds.    

Bottom line: I appreciate the town and will be there, by necessity, almost every day.  But even as I am getting used to not locking my bike when I use it "on campus",  I know I need to lock my bike when I stop somewhere in town.  The mirage of isolation seems to extend at least that far.