Our class got canceled yesterday, so my friend Joanna and I took the day to stroll the Downtown mall. It is one of my favorite places in Charlottesville, (Thomas Jefferson may have just rolled over in his grave.)
Jefferson viewed downtown as a place to mingle with the locals, Church hop, and a place to just go when he needed to get off the mountain. TJ's superstar status was catered to greatly on Monticello. As he greeted hundreds of visitors a week, and had everything a former president could want. I can understand how the God-like status his mountain home gave him could get old after awhile. Everyone needs a break. Jefferson saw Charlottesville as an accessible one. Jefferson's downtown is a few streets over from where today's down town mall would have been. The commercial center that is the downtown mall today popped up in the end of the nineteenth/early twentieth century. A few decades ago the ends of the mall were closed off to vehicular traffic and the street scape has turned into prime bar,cafe, and plant space. When I walk down the mall the activities of the people, the local artisans, the vibrant life of the city is ideal to get away from the mountain. My mountain happens to be a large brick brutalist building hidden from eye shot of the Rotunda, where the architects are tucked away from the neo-classical world that is uva.
With application deadlines and the first deadlines for my thesis coming up quick I have to remember to take a chill. Breathe. and take a few minutes to keep it all together.
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