It's just passing through, or just staying put. Sometimes, Charlottesville is the center, or at other times, it's just a periphery. But in any case, this tiny city tucked into the folds of the Blue Ridge is a hinge-point in the lives of many, where people and memories from the outside world uncannily slip in and out.
At first glance, one might think he's not all there. Something's a little off about him, perhaps. Carl wears fairy wings and tiger slippers to work on the Downtown Mall.
"I got these from Tiger Woods," Carl Clownie declares, lifting up one slippered foot in the air for closer inspection.
His voice slurs to an unnatural pitch, to an octave much higher than that of an infant. In this practiced voice, Carl croons to young passers-by as he dexterously ties balloons into various tri-colored souvenirs. The children are skeptical and push away. The adults are interested, and many toss crumpled bills into the cardboard box by his slippers.
"The big kids like them as much as the little kids," Carl says as he proffers his balloon creations to a mother hovering over her toddler's navy stroller.
Carl is an eccentric figure to the untrained eye, but he's also a wanderer. His journeys have crisscrossed the country in the past decade. But even if he likes a place, he never stays put for long.
"I've probably played to more than 15 million people in all the places I've been," Carl says with an idiosyncratic grin that nudges the clown glasses higher on the bridge of his nose.
He's a violinist and a keyboard virtuoso. In his mind, he pictures the coast of California, the political core of Washington and all that he's seen in between. But Carl feels drawn to the northwest, to Portland and the heavy fog and low-slung clouds. Carl got his start playing gigs in Seattle, but if he could return to any one of the cities he once visited, it would be Portland. He isn't exactly sure why - maybe it's the Christmas there, or maybe it's the way the city's inhabitants always made sure his cardboard box was full. Brimming, in fact. But Carl's favorite place is Ybor City, Fla., near Tampa. "Just a little tiny place," he says.
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Wine leaves its mark on the landscape at Oakencroft Vineyard and Winery.
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Back to his music. Back to the balloon making in Charlottesville. He delves into extemporaneous melody, his vocals tenoring a lower pitch than his speaking voice. The bolder children pause, then gather up the balloons he offers them. Carl jams on his Fisher Price keyboard, addressing most of his lyrics to Piggy, the favorite of his collection of stuffed animals arranged at his feet.
A wanderer is at home in all places. But how long Carl will remain is uncertain. For him, it is reassuring that "they know me all over the world - I've been all over."
Some come to Charlottesville and remain for an even shorter visit than Carl. Some come to Charlottesville and never leave. And some are around travelers every day, but never get to go anywhere themselves.
A plane engine whines. An exhaust trail sears across the April blue sky. It's a tiny airport. It's an airport with skylights - perfect for daydreaming and the mind's travels.
At the National Rental Car service desk, Lisa Anderson takes a break. Travelers, hard words, travelers and more hard words fill many of her days. She needs a vacation. And sometimes, she just wants to go home. If she could, she'd take to the road and leave the airy airport halls for Louisa County whenever insistent customers step over the line.
But if she couldn't go home, a sandy beach would suit her just fine. A sandy beach, blue water and an island.
"I've always wanted to go to Hawaii - I've never been there before, but I hear it's something else," Anderson says with a sly grin.
But if Anderson couldn't fly to a more temperate climate, she would head for the sugar sand beaches of Florida in a rental car.
"I'd always head south," she says.
The urge to travel, no matter how small a distance, doesn't seem to wane with age or experience. Take a trio of anglers, for example, casting out in the lazy spring afternoon. One expert and two novices perch on the edge of Chris Greene Lake, all three from Charlottesville, all three always on the move.
"I'm a Southerner, I was born fishing," Al Jensen declares.
He struggles in vain to untangle his young son's fishing lines from a clump of brownish weeds at the water's edge.
"Fishing is supposed to be relaxing, until you have kids," Jensen says as he recasts the line, his glossy curls tousled by the breeze.
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French patisserie chef Sebastian Jack crafts almond pastries at Fleurie restaurant on the Downtown Mall.
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Jensen often brings his young son Alley and teenage daughter Ashley to fish at the park. He himself frequented Chris Green Lake as a boy.
Jensen is a fresh water expert, a frequenter of trout streams and lakes filled with bass. Still, he likes to branch out. Jensen is looking forward to a fishing trip to the Outer Banks, N.C. this September when he hopes to reel in a slew of good-sized tuna.
"I'm not a big angler by any stretch of the imagination," Jensen says in a Southern drawl, "but fishing has just been an excuse to just go do nothing."
But Jensen's younger cohorts seem less than fascinated with the pastime. As Jensen busily re-hooks a plastic grub onto Alley's pole, his son finds more interest in zooming his Matchbox cars along the shore.
"We usually go hiking as a family - that's our thing, but I thought Alley was old enough to do some fishing," Jensen said, shaking his head and chuckling. "Maybe I was wrong."
Adventurers in Charlottesville move both inside and outside the city limits. Far from the Jensen fishing scene, a mother in a cafe is about to embark on one with her young daughter.
Janet Horne, a professor in the University French department, fervently watches her daughter, Isabelle Holloway, pry the chocolate out of a croissant at the Albemarle Baking Company on West Main Street.
Horne, Isabelle and her husband are on their way to an afternoon retreat at a colleague's cabin near the West Virginia border.
"When I first moved here from New York I wondered why anyone would want to go deeper into the woods," Horne said.
But now, she looks for a haven and a little peace and quiet.
"We were planning on bringing bread and cheese," Horne says as Isabelle bites into one of the four baguettes resting conspicuously on the table. The chocolate-cheeked toddler beams shyly.
Beyond an afternoon bread and cheese party in the mountains, Horne also enjoys travel in Europe, particularly France. Although she grew up in Pittsburgh, Horne says she has lived in various places in France for about eight years in total. This summer, she will return again, this time to teach in Leon as part of a University summer study abroad program.
And then there are those Charlottesville residents who have come from abroad. Sebastian Jack, for example, is a Frenchman here for good. A shy man with a big smile, a slender man with slender hands, he is an artist.
But not just any artist - Jack is a patisserie chef. Though he acquired the skills to concoct intricate desserts such as Creme Brulee and Dacquoise in culinary school in his hometown of Alsace, he now practices his art at Fleurie restaurant on the Downtown Mall.
Since the restaurant opened last September, Jack has worked, six days a week, to create sculpture-like pastries.
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"You have to be very patient," Jack says of his desserts. He and Fleurie co-owner Brian Helle lead the way to a tiny workspace in the back of the kitchen. Jack creates his art in the midst of boxes of eggs and cartons of milk.
On a tiny metal countertop, Jack's slim hands fold and refold floured dough for almond pastries. A half-smile appears on his face as he showcases the finished product in the kitchen's roomy refrigerator - brilliant dollops of yellow cream centered on pastry cutouts.
Jack remained in culinary school for three years in order to learn to create such favorites as Fleurie, which is Tarragon and Raspberry "Dacquoise" served with Marzipan Ice Cream. But now that Jack is married, he prefers to remain in what he calls "a pretty good city" rather than return to France.
Jack isn't the only thing that has come from abroad. Centuries ago, it was an idea that traveled across the Atlantic - rows upon rows of grapes baking in the Virginia sun, some red, some white. And today, it's a reality. At Oakencroft Vineyard and Winery on Garth Road, the oldest winery in Virginia and in the Monticello wine district, the chardonnays and clarets have gone down in history.
Think Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, and then add wine. Both former presidents used Oakencroft wines for official dinners.
"In 1988, when Reagan went to meet with Gorbechev, he took along over 72 gold medal-winning Virginia wines - including two of ours," says Terry Nance, a wine connoisseur at Oakencroft.
Nance explains how Clinton served Oakencroft wines to U.S. governors at the first state dinner of his administration in 1993.
In keeping with its international reputation, Oakencroft attracts tourists from as far away as Russia, China and Japan, Nance says. Even Nance has brought knowledge from abroad back to her job at the winery.
"I once took a hot air balloon wine tasting trip to France for my 50th birthday," Nance says.
A birthday trip. A fishing trip. A trip to France. A trip to Portland. And a trip to the kitchen. Together, they make up a travelogue that illustrates the diverse character that is Charlottesville. And viewed separately, the trips are as different as the people who've taken them.
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