Exile in Atlanta

A year ago, had I wondered what the end of 2020 would be like, I certainly wouldn’t have imagined living in the heart of Atlanta. I’ve called this city home for as long as I can remember, but it’s always been a relationship of mutual passivity. The summer before college was the most time I’d spent in Downtown Atlanta, a commute made easier by my sister’s apartment being a stone’s throw from the Belt Line. Still, it wasn’t city-living so much as finding a space for myself halfway between work and home. In fact, that brief transitory lifestyle between high school student and college student was almost enough to discourage me from wanting to ever live downtown.

Then the pandemic escalated, and I was sheltering in place miles away from the city in Lithonia, a less populated and more historically rural township. The forest trails and quaint main streets reminded me of my college town in Milledgeville, save the overcast remnants of antebellum south. Lithonia was where I ended up working, creating, meeting my chosen family and planning out my life beyond finishing university. I had intended to remain there until I figured out new living amenities.

I was then shunted into a studio apartment right across from Piedmont Park a week before the holidays. My Atlanta natives are aware that Midtown is essentially the heart of the city, heavily-gentrified with little space to get away from the wailing machinery of modernized civilization. Had there been a choice, I would have stayed beyond the city perimeter and commuted if need be. But no, here I am. Living a far cry from my past year in quarantine. Besides, I didn’t actually have a choice.

The apartment I’m in now used to belong to my father’s current wife, who moved into the house I was raised in after they married. I think that her personality is more suited for the consumerist lifestyle of a city-dweller, living in a place that is equidistant from numerous five-star restaurants and bourgeois businesses that urbanites love so much. Her insistence on how perfect the location was for someone my age—a twenty-year-old college student who values his independence—felt very forced, like she had ignored who I was the year I’d spent with her and my father in quarantine. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did. The speed at which I was moved from my father’s house to Piedmont Avenue Northeast was so blatantly a mission to get rid of me that it would have been impressive were it not the biggest act of deception and disrespect.

Moving from Lithonia was rather a culture shock. I believe I suffered from a minor form of agoraphobia in those first few weeks of living here. My apartment literally faces the park and with the blinds down on the front windows, there is very little privacy from pedestrians and drivers alike. This condominium might as well be a storefront what with how it’s been designed. I seldom enter my apartment building through the front door because I still value my privacy, and coming from a prior location where no one would see when I entered or exited my home, the lack thereof is still excruciatingly uncomfortable.

There are, however, various gems about living here that I’ve discovered. One is that my apartment faces east, so in the morning on a clear day, sunlight spills into my bedroom through the front windows. Granted, I need to have the blinds almost all the way open to receive any sunlight during this morning glow, but it’s still a beautiful and refreshing start to my day. Another is on the roof of a parking garage up the street from my building. Drivers seldom park their cars on the top levels, so it’s an open space surrounded by nearby skyscrapers. In the afternoon, the roof is the perfect place to go and clear my head in the sun, away from the constant stream of people on the sidewalks. I doubt I’ll ever be free of the noise of the city until I move again, but the solitude is reassuring.

Lastly is a location I discovered the night I am writing this story. The weeklong overcast sky finally broke this afternoon and the sun came out, only to set hours later. I decided to walk somewhere to watch the sunrise. As I said, my apartment faces east, toward the park, and without roof access to my building or any of the taller ones nearby, I don’t see many sunsets. Tonight, I walked the park until I reached the Atlanta Botanical Garden parking garage. I assume that you are probably perplexed by my affinity for empty parking lots. With the least explanation, the safe space of an introvert may be very eccentric.

At the sixth level of the parking garage, there is a corner that faces the southwest stretch of the skyline. The sun fell beneath the buildings and left the city silhouetted by its dusky afterglow. To the east, northeast is Piedmont Park. The garage is terraced over the trees, so from high ground it looks like an uninterrupted forest right next to the city. The moon at sunset hangs directly overhead, dogs bark in the park below, and to the south someone has released a mass of balloons that travel eastward in the wind. A flock of geese flies past me almost at eye-level. I haven’t seen such a satisfying view since climbing Arabia Mountain thirty miles east out near Lithonia.

Of course, the temperature’s been in the twenties all day, despite the sun. I can only stay at this new destination for so long until the cold starts to feel like daggers stabbing my exposed hands. The walk back is maybe five, ten minutes. I may have been exiled to a city that I don’t intend to call my permanent residence, but for now, I have every intent to return to that spot for more sunsets to come.