I figure any column that brings similar responses from avant garde-ista Little Shiva AND civic stalwart Frank Bragg must have hit a nerve. (Feel free to add your own responses, below.)
Last Saturday’s Urban Outlook column was about learning to love Charlotte after living here 28 years. (Ouch, typing that “28” still hurts.) Compared with places like Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, Asheville, or even Fayetteville, Charlotte’s personality is, well, elusive.
Years ago, I was at a job-recruiting fair trying to meet promising young journalists who might want to work for The Charlotte Observer. One photographer stopped by the booth, and we chatted. She asked, “Does Charlotte have a soul?”
Long pause. Remember, I was being paid to make people think they’d want to work here. Finally, I came up with a convoluted response that I hope didn’t sound too desperate. It went something like this: “Charlotte’s soul is subtle. You have to live there a while before you can figure out what it is. It’s hidden, sort of … ” The photographer never, to my knowledge, applied for a job here.
I wrote, years ago, that Charlotte may have no “soul,” per se – although some people pointed out to me that the city probably does have a soul, just not one I approve of. Whatever.
Anyway, several people I’ve talked to about my Saturday column – one has lived here 30 years – have confessed to ongoing ambivalence about Charlotte, but that they’re starting to suspect that they, too, may be feeling more affection for the place.
Little Shiva, if you haven’t run into her, is a graphic designer and artist who publishes an underground magazine called QZ and who generally makes Charlotte a more interesting place to live in. She wrote:
“Just wanted to tell you that I like your Charlotte Valentine in today’s paper. I’m not quite ready to say the same for myself, but I feel like I might be someday. I’m not as far along as you, having just gotten here in late 1999. I’m still not in love with this place. … In spite of my family roots here and in spite of the fact that I’ve been fairly well accepted, I’m still dreaming of Mr. Right (referring to some dream city).
“But I have to look at how far I’ve come since 1999, all the commitments I’ve made towards Charlotte, personally as well as creatively, and I have to realize that this dopey town has somehow become a part of me. Whether or not I ever leave, or just keep this as home base and travel a whole lot more, Charlotte will be a begrudgingly fond chapter in my life story.”
Frank Bragg, by contrast, is a successful financial adviser and a well-known philanthropist and civic activist – very “establishment,” if you will, and a decidedly different style than Little Shiva. It was Frank and Kathy Bragg, for instance, who recently donated $100,000 to start an endowment fund for the Chamber Music at St. Peter’s concert series.
“Loved your article about your gradual coming to love Charlotte. I feel the same way. Kathy grew up here and we have lived here 43 years … except we have always lived outside the city. First south, at Elm Lane and Providence Road West on a small farm (now totally developed …) and then on Lake Norman for the last 16 years. … But now we live in Fourth Ward in a condo. We bought it in 1999 and lived here only part-time until last August when we sold our lake house. We love the city. It is exciting, stimulating, and beautiful.”