ode to monrovia

oh monrovia, with your majestic mountain facades and slopes reaching down to the people.

oh monrovia, with your socio-economic stratification, the wealthy protected by hillcrest avenue, (and gates with guards,) the well off elegantly ensconced above foothill boulevard with finely appointed homes and sparkling swimming pools, the middle class comfortably housed above huntington drive in tiny, rented boxes, the strugglers above duarte road walking to the bus stops and beauty parlors and taco stands, the economically almost comically disadvantaged below duarte avenue, peaking through shudders from crack-stained living rooms, summoning policemen by actions or 9-1-1 calls, living under the spectre of the ghetto bird's circling spotlight.

oh monrovia, so refreshingly not the bourgeoisie of arcadia, with their tree-lined suburbs spreading all the way to duarte road and beyond, so utterly devoid of diversity and flavor.

oh monrovia, white with black and brown speckles, i love you. i crave you.

oh monrovia, with your hillside preservation society and your mason's lodge, your trader joe's, your aztec hotel, hyour misplaced parrots, your parades and events hustling down myrtle avenue like a spectacle of 1950s americana. sling those batons young ladies-blow those horns young men!

oh monrovia, your numerous drug stores, pot dealers and meth houses, surely 50% of your inhabitants are well medicated. accepting multiple walgreen's and rite aids, a cvs and an express pharmacy along with the pharmacies housed in supermarkets so conveniently, (as if walgreen's drive by drugs were not enough,) and yet you rejected the family planning clinic post construction? not exactly our shining moment of taking some responsibility for our collective issues in the community of san gabriel valley cities is it?

oh monrovia, so pro business by city decree, welcome aerovironment! oracle! sierra autocars! mt. sierra college! aerotek! paragon at old town & colorado commons! worley-parsons! champion broadband! exelis itt systems! verizon! automobile club! 3m! labcorp! green dot!  pro business reputation secure.

oh monrovia, with your library friends, william monroe rock and mark twain bench. quaint and charming if contrived.

oh monrovia, with your public parks and spaces galore. bless you for that vision, your children are rich.

oh monrovia, your plethora of churches astounds me daily. i imagine visiting the jehovah's witness kingdom hall, (the one on alta vista, not the one at the corner of colorado and ivy,) or the kwan yin temple so pristine, or the first presbyterian, or the first church of the nazarene, or the latter day saints on west lime, or the church of revelation, or the bethel ame church of m-town, or restored life fellowship, or the plasticky calvary chapel making a big splash down on evergreen avenue, or the shiloh african methodist episcopalian, (aint that some distinction,) or the filipino baptist christian church, or restored life fellowship, or immaculate conception, (indeed,) or first indonesian baptist, (why they don't just go worship with the filipinos i have no idea,) or mary knoll sisters home, or foothill unity center, such devotion, but alas i am stifled at the thought of a decision.

oh monrovia, far from arid or jejune you are full of the interesting and colorful. should i live some place where everyone is like me? should i move to silverlake or claremont of santa monica? should i forego my weather and join the beanie brigade of the young and informed in portland or some other northwestern town? or perhaps i should go to angry arizona where the ignorant seem to be experiencing a whiplash backlash to the steady crawl of evolution? maybe i should go to mexico, live hardscrabble, make friends of the vaqueros and get a job in a maquiladora assembling drive shafts for japanese automobiles? or australia... perhaps i should shift my seasons, have a spring and a summer followed by a spring and a summer, see if it alters me in some unfathomable way, makes me somehow brighter, warmer? developing an accent would be interesting, mate. or maybe i should move to nigeria, find a few americans or brits, get a pit bull for protection and really challenge myself in the corrupt and distressed land of chinua achebe?

no-monrovia. i want to visit distant lands and strange climes but i want to continue to live right here in this vibrantly humdrum burg. i want to sit down at the local alehouse next to my republican neighbors and find common ground. i want to greet the mormon missionaries from brazil and canada who arrive at my door with warmth and benevolence. in spite of the semester i spent at the fundamentalist, christian college learning that these people are cultists, my experience has shown zero difference between them and my former classmates. i want to have breakfast at the counter at leroy's astride the aged motorcycle enthusiasts, all decked out in their leather, making bawdy jokes with the familiar waitress as they take their coffee refills. i want to see my children leave monrovia to attend university and i want to watch them return to visit me, fondly recalling their days here at the foot of these brown-green, shadowed mountains in the town straining to be more americana than la crescenta and la verne. i want to see what else develops here in monrovia. i want to chronicle it in my lonesome journal.

oh monrovia, you are perfectly imperfect. i wish you were noisier and less ordered. i wish you required fewer policemen. i wish the renters deeper in the valley had as much influence as the owners on the hillsides. i wish you were slightly less respectable but a bit more renowned. (perhaps the coming film festival will help?)

oh monrovia, i am planning on staying if you will have me, a rather unnoticeable resident shuffling to and fro between the basketball courts and the bars and the supermarket and the gas station and the post office, smiling whenever i am able.

and when i leave you monrovia, my last words will likely rue the fact that methodist hospital is in arcadia, when i would have preferred to cease right here in m-town.