southern girl

It's funny how you grow up in a place and then, once you leave it, your memories there become faded and one dimensional. In many ways the past becomes an old photo album. Fun to look through and reflect on, but not something you think about everyday.

And now, here I am in the same part of the world I grew up in, facing all those forgotten childhood memories. Things like how greasy bacon smells and the sound of my grandmother's voice. The fact that everyone says ya'll, no matter what. That people smile, even when they're angry at the world.

Small things.

In some ways it's almost painful for me to come back down south. I left a part of me behind when I moved away, the innocent side that lived a southern life. It's not even so much that I miss that piece of me as much as I'm just missing what I had forgotten to miss. Realizing -- wait. I never did fully mourn leaving where I grew up, I never did give up my ties to the south, I never did forget the taste of Smithfield BBQ. Never, never.

Small things I forgot about.
Small things I now remember.

Sometimes it's funny to think that I'm a southern girl. No one thinks it when they see me in New York City because I don't talk with an accent or use courtly manners or smile at strangers. People are even surprised when I tell them, 'why yes, I can out-southern a southerner.' Because it's true. I can. Just people don't realize that.

But being here, back in the south, reminds me that you can't take the 'ya'lls' and 'thank you's' out of a girl. I slip right back into having an accent, easy as putting on a pair of slippers. I smile at people I don't know. Talk to strangers. Hold doors for people. Make sure my hair looks nice.

Small things I grew up with. Orderly Southern things.

Here in the south you are either in or you're out. You're either southern or you're not. When you're inside the fold, one of us, you're accepted. If you aren't, well, people are still nice but it isn't the same.

This fact is one of the things I miss most about where I grew up. I have a southern side of the family. My cousin is a Georgia peach. My aunt has an accent. My sister can make a mean pecan pie. We eat black eyed peas every New Year's for good luck, and put hot sauce on collard greens.

I'm on the inside. I'm accepted here. I have roots here. I know how to act and talk and behave.

Up north, it's not like that. People tell me my attitude is too soft. That I stick out like a sore thumb. I'm too this, not enough that. I'm rootless. The only family I have up north I've never met. It's a world full of strangers. I'm an outsider, always looking in.

Yet, despite this, I will never again live in the south. The closest thing to living here I plan on is someday owning a small cottage in the North Carolina mountains. A summer place. But otherwise, no. No south for me.

I left too much of myself behind when I moved away. There's a little ghost of me traveling the southern highways, stopping in at Waffle Houses and broken down cotton farms. It's the wanderer in me. The kid in me. I can't ever get that back, and so I'm letting her go and have the south. It hurts too much to try and take that back.

In less than 24 hours I'll be on my way again, traveling back to the great white north. Once again I'm leaving so much of myself behind, the little kid who reached out and touched me while I was here. My old innocence.

thanks

This is just a small thank you to those who have been leaving such kind and insightful comments in response to my blog entries. It feels nice. So ... thanks. :)
I'll be adding an entry on that fabled day of Christmas Eve, so if any of you find yourself bored waiting to rip open presents, stop by this page.
Oh -- and Happy Holidays. Getting free stuff and lots of food is pretty damn A-Okay.

small things

This is my neighborhood --

trash on sidewalks.
christmas lights strung up along fire escapes.
parked cars.

These are some of the people who live here --

the drunk old man who always has bloodshot eyes.
macho, the kid with the baseball cap, who stands around with his pitbull.
eunice, the lady next door with beautiful blue eyes.
a girl who constantly carries a baby on her hip.

These are some of the sounds I hear --

cars going by on the highway.
laughing voices outside my front door.
a child playing recorder through an open window.
ambulance sirens.
rap blasting on car radios.

Other things --

the police station always smells like donuts.
white kastle always smells like heaven.
men like to smile at me when they walk by.
$1 tacos at the store on the corner.
my cat likes to watch the stray cats outside the kitchen window.

the magic holiday shrub

I saw. I conquered. I braved the mighty masses and let myself get hooked by tourist bait.

Yes, my friends, I had to pay a Little Visit to the Rockefeller tree. I've been wanting to go all month, and now I can finally say ... yeah, I walked around a big tree full of blinking lights. A big magic Christmas shrub.

I'm not sure what I was hoping for from the experience, but what I got out of it was:
a) a deep loathing of tourists, touristy crowds and touristy crowds with cameras
b) curiosity over how the city found a tree that big?
c) a financial question: how many of my tax dollars are going towards fueling the frenzy of lights?
d) a new found happiness in staring at window displays, lit up electric angels, bad ice skaters and people desperate enough for a job to dress up as Spongebob Squarepants and Cookie Monster.

Seriously. There were at least three television characters strutting their stuff around the plaza, waiting for people to pay money to be photographed with them. The costumed freaks must breed like rabbits, because by the end of my visit I swear there were more of them bumping around than when I arrived.

The tree itself -- oh, lovely, lovely. She must be a throwback to the Ice Age of mammoth beasts, because I haven't seen anything that large since visiting a dinosaur exhibit as a kid. I loved the fact it was draped in colored lights. White is supposed to be 'classy', but who can deny the happiness in seeing a dozen different colors winking at you from all over a tree? A color convention. I totally dug it.

Saks Fifth Avenue apparently has some sort of manic Carol of the Bells chime that goes off in the evenings as part of their Christmas display. It even has a techno groove and a light show to go along with it, complete with a cast of over sized snowflakes. The best part? The snowflakes have talent. They can blink in time to the music.

Amazing, these New York stores.

The ice skating rink at Rockefeller is so much smaller than it looks on TV. I expected it to be a Rink Royale, something Olympic sized. The reality isn't quite up to par, but the place still looks like a lot of fun. If I didn't have to worry about breaking limbs and ending a music career, I'd have gone out there in a second.

In other news, my neighbor keeps blasting the same Mariah Carey song repeatedly, and I'm praying the MTA strike doesn't happen. Such is life. Final exams are coming up, which means I'll probably be updating this as much as possible to avoid studying.

barefoot in the snow

Moments in Washington Square Park ....

barefoot in the snow

She was sitting there on a park bench, wrapped up in a parka and scarf, eyes pointed toward the ground. Sitting there and doing nothing. Not talking, not humming, not eating, not even looking around. Silent, still and dressed for the Arctic.

I walked by her slowly, not wanting to disturb her peace. The old woman seemed content being there on the bench, and as I went by I let her stillness become my own. The stillness of just trying to be alright with the moment, with the everythings and nothings going on in the world.

And then, as I had almost finished passing her by, I looked over and saw --

naked feet.

Fat and bare flesh, sockless, shoeless, dangling out in the air. Sausage toes. Wiggling.

The woman had lined her shoes up neatly under the park bench, a tidy little row of brown boots. There was some sort of beautiful logic to it all, and for a minute part of me wanted to join her and start a revolution of shoeless winters. But then the feeling passed and I walked on, out of the park and back into reality.

the singing man and his joint

I didn't know anything about him except that my friend was talking to him, and loudly. They were sitting in the twilight of the park, talking over traffic and taking turns jamming on guitar, laughing loudly and reeking of marijuana.

When I saw them I was mad. Not because they smelled too obvious or that their laughter had the people walking by staring at them; it was nothing like that. I was simply afraid, because here was a strange man sitting with my friend, someone I didn't know who had broken into the peace of the night that I had hoped to spend in privacy.

I sat down by them and listened to the two of them talk crazy things. The stranger was middle aged, a little crazy, a little happy. He called me Mary Magdalene and spoke of how it was she who had really run Jesus's show. He said -- it was all the women, you see. It was all the women who made civilization and made things right. Jesus would have been no where if it hadn't been for women. Religion needs women. We all need women.

He kept singing songs on his guitar for the people walking by. My friend joined in too, egging me on to try, but I kept quiet, letting the pair revel in their own music world. Maybe I was just doing what women do, keeping the natural order of things on track. Trying out my new status as silent ruler of the universe. Needing no one.

After a time I said I Had Things To Do. My friend got the hint and together we got up, shook the stranger's hand and wished him luck. As I walked away the man said -- it's the women in the world who keep it together. They keep it all going.

fat dog

In the summer I saw a man carrying a bulldog in each arm. His face was red and sweaty like he'd just been out for a walk, and the dogs looked slobbery and content, like they had just taken their master out for a stroll.

The man gave me a smile when he saw me watching, and together we both shared a moment of amusement over how two dogs can control a grown man.

Christmas Monsters

Merry Christmas, New York Hates You.

Some days this city is a mean place.

I've never noticed it before, but suddenly everyone in New York has turned into Christmas Monsters running around buying gifts and viewing holiday displays. Some of these people look happy, but most just look angry, bored or generally miserable.
Christmas Monsters walk into you on the street. They don't hold doors for you or help you pick up dropped packages. They ignore you when you're lost and trying to ask directions, and if they should (accidentally) make eye contact with you they immediately start staring through you like they're looking at some sort of ghost.

The funny thing is that before all this holiday rush, I was a defender of New Yorkers. There have been so many who've proven the old stereotypes wrong -- the old man who offered to help me carry my grocery bags in the rain, the Target worker who gave me discounts for no reason, the little Chinese girl on the train who kept shyly smiling and waving at me.

New Yorkers aren't supposed to have humanity; they aren't supposed to care about other people because they're busy worrying about themselves. I never thought this was true until the past week.
Maybe it's a phase, an annual adolescence the city goes through. Brains all out of whack, filled with Holiday Hormones and bodies filling out with shopping bags.

Whatever it may be, I hope this city returns to normal soon. It's really starting to get to me, how depressing this season can be and how stressed everyone is over it. If forgetting to be human and kind is a part of the holidays, then what is the point of celebrating them?

In other news, in an effort to cheer up, I'm going to visit the tree at Rockefeller Center. I'm going to bring my digital camera if I can get it work -- it's being a brat with me, just like the rest of this city. But, I'm going to go and stare at Christmas lights and ice skaters and one big green giant and try to get into the holiday spirit -- without turning into a Christmas Monster myself.

Midget Italy

Some small observations on life in New York City:

1) Little Italy is not little. It isn't even small, or petite. It's so damn tiny that it should be re-named the politically incorrect 'Midget Italy.'

2) The Canal Street subway stop is smelly. Really, really, really smelly. If you like the reek of old fish and garbage, then you'll love the CT stop ... otherwise stay far away, or else plug up your nostrils.

3) I have full respect for the religion of others, but if you're a male Orthodox Jew walking around in black clothing at night, you might want to consider actually paying attention to the traffic. Like, y'know, not crossing the street when the 'DO NOT WALK' sign is blatantly blinking. No one can see you! You're wearing black! Pay attention to the hundreds of cars waiting to run over you!

4) To NYC women: the jeans-stuffed-into-your-boots look is idiotic and not flattering on anyone. For the love of all things holy, just stop trying to be trendy. Or else buy footwear that doesn't belong to a lumberjack.

It's New York So Screw It

[note: these are from an earlier version of this blog which was sent through email.]

just some meanderings on nyc life. it's a big place, but the small things make
the heaviest impact on me.


11/08 (already?)
some observations:

don't take an uptown train when you're trying to go downtown in a hurry.
not even by mistake.
trust me.

on the train tonight there was a man who kept laughing. laughing and smiling while reading a very worn looking book in his hands. totally oblivious to everyone around him. just reading and laughing and turning pages.
things like that get to me. not in a bad way, just in a life-is-funny way. you go all day without hearing laughter and then suddenly there's a man sitting across from you who's filling space up with it. only, he's not taking pleasure in another human being, in some kind of interaction -- he's happy because he's alone with his little book.

in other news, i have discovered something. it is called INYSSI, ie It's New York So Screw It. this syndrome applies to many things. in a hurry and your outfit doesn't match? whatever. it's new york, so screw it. no one cares. you realize you've been walking around all day with toilet paper stuck to your shoe? it's new york. screw it because someone, somewhere, is probably eating toilet paper from some one's shoe and loving it. you get into a loud argument over the phone with a significant other in public? screw it. so does everyone else.

new yorkers are a very open people. you could have three heads and goat horns sprouting from your eye sockets, but you probably wouldn't warrant much more than a passing glance of interest.

beautiful women here don't even get much attention. maybe a comment and a look from two or three men. otherwise, though, everyone is very unimpressed by good looks. i think it's because there are so many modelgoddesses walking around that the minute you start thinking about it you end up feeling very small and unimportant indeed.

the above, please note, is applicable only to manhattan. in brooklyn all bets are off.

last night at the local kfc my roommate told off (in a very nice minnesota way) one of the employees. she hated the job and apparently hated us for making her have to be there and work. so, my roommate eyes the worker and says, "cheer up, it's not that sad," as we were leaving. and what do you know? the man behind us got greeted with a "welcome to kfc, how may i help you?"
all we got was a frown and attitude.

my cat ringo ate all the sausage off my pizza tonight, but i guess that doesn't count for news on living in nyc.

that's all for now. until next time remember there " just ain't no place like new york."