The small bump of the car as it turns into the parking lot pulls me from the half-awake, half-asleep state that I always seem to find myself in on even the shortest drives. This 15 minute drive to Redwood City, California’s downtown is one my family has done plenty of times, whether to eat a meal or watch a movie, among other things. But as I step out of the car and look around, I realize that while I recognize some places I’ve been before, I can’t really recall the route back to our home, which is just 3 miles away.
My experience of Redwood City for most of my time there, and by extension my experience of the Bay Area, has been very fragmented. I knew the parks, hiking trails, and routes where we would walk our dogs, but each place was disconnected from the other, like islands standing out from the wide expanse of the highways, roads, and fenced-off houses that made up the visual majority of every journey. Combined with my tendency to fall asleep when someone else was driving, the temporal and spatial separation of every location always felt distorted and confused.
When I took a gap year back home with my partner, it felt like I learned more about the city and the Bay Area in those months than I had in all the other years of my life. Her curiosity drove us to walk and explore more spontaneously, and I was able to mentally map out and connect all the places I had been before. The stores and restaurants, which used to be separated by asphalt and traffic lights, became filled out plazas and tree-lined sidewalks, linked by interesting points and inside jokes. The asphalt was still definitely there (the main street sidewalks still abruptly ended, pushing us uncomfortably close to the speeding cars), but the city was laid out fully for me with both its positives and negatives.
Redwood City Downtown
Before the gap year, I had always viewed the city from the perspective of a driver or at least a car rider. Rules of the road, traffic, and long red lights stood out more to me as a representation of the entire city more than the destinations did. Now, however, I also see it through both the perspective of a pedestrian, but more importantly as someone who is curious. Driving was always a means to a preplanned end, and its nature meant that exploration was tied to what you could see going at 25-35 mph. Exploring on foot, meanwhile, has no definite end, and has made me feel more connected to the land around me as I notice the details that would otherwise be blurred out with the speed and intentionality (which certainly can be helpful) of point-to-point travel.
Ultimately, I feel that my view of Redwood City has dramatically changed over the past few years. I used to view it only in reference to its material benefits in services and what I wanted or needed to get out of it before returning home. But viewing it as less a conglomeration of locations and more as a fabric with stories behind every corner has brought it together more as one unique entity, and brought me closer to it as well. I hope that everyone would be able to find that connection as I believe it speaks to more than just our individual needs, extending into the idea, and comfort, of community and a wider identity.