The bridges are short in Dallas. Concrete pilings laid down in manmade lakes where trees still reside though don't live. It is flat and that's okay but short, which may not be. I haven't decided yet. The roads are long, wide, expansive. A commute of forty-five minutes takes you much further than from Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn to Hell's Kitchen, 7.3 miles.
Wake up from a dead hard sleep at six AM on the nose (seven AM EST) to pee. The window is open in the bathroom. The small high window is always open in the bathroom. I hear a whippoorwill crying out its morning proclamation--or rather I hear the familiar call of a bird that I've always imagined was a whippoorwill because of its noise. It is answered by a mockingbird. The call and response strives to a solid minute of sound. And then, more noises, more birds, more songs. Finches, cardinals, chickadees, blue jays, all thrown back at the mockingbird, a cacophany of morning joy. The rare car drove up the street behind the house, but that didn't deter anything, they kept calling our welcoming the sun.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
One Last Look Back
The driver of the “Happy Cab” (7th Avenue Car Service) could tell I was leaving Brooklyn. I don’t know if it was the amount of luggage—4 suitcases and a sewing machine for only three people--or if we had mentioned it casually as we drove up the BQE, three sandwiched in the back. My head kept resting on my sister’s shoulder, a common comfortable place. It was warm in the car, but a good warm. There was a chill outside. The chill that only exists in the mornings on those spring harkening days. It burns off fast once the sun's up but in the morning needs a bit of heat and a jacket to drive it out of you.
The driver—an old Brooklyn man weather in his face and voice, silver-gray hair poking out of his Mets cap—was playing Chet Baker, a perfect morning, mourning tune. He said how he never got Baker albums when he sang on them, “Made that mistake once.”
I said, “Jazz doesn’t need words.” He agreed. We drove on. There was no traffic. No nothing. A smooth stop-less ride up the East River into Queens—words that I wouldn’t have been able to picture seven months prior.
We dropped Petra and Eric off first. And then as we swung around to Terminal C, he asked me.
“You leaving Brooklyn?”
“Yeah…Been here seven months…”
“You’ll miss it…”
“I think I will…”
“It gets in your blood.”
He paused. He is filled with Brooklyn. Its in not in his blood, it is his blood—Prospect Park and 7th Ave. Bay Ridge. Gowanus. Down to Brighton Beach up to Green Point. It surges through ever little capillary and artery surging him to life. His gratey voice tells me “Here we are” and I climb out.” He opens the back door opposite me and checks the back seat for anything left behind. I check it too. He nods at me through the car—each of us on one side highlighted by the morning light.
We unpack the trunk, “suitcase, sewing machine, this thing.” And he pauses—and I don’t know if it is because he sees it in my face or felt it in my voice or was aware of the waves of regret and woe and fear pouring off of me—but he tells me—looking me square in the eyes:
“You’ll be back.”
The driver—an old Brooklyn man weather in his face and voice, silver-gray hair poking out of his Mets cap—was playing Chet Baker, a perfect morning, mourning tune. He said how he never got Baker albums when he sang on them, “Made that mistake once.”
I said, “Jazz doesn’t need words.” He agreed. We drove on. There was no traffic. No nothing. A smooth stop-less ride up the East River into Queens—words that I wouldn’t have been able to picture seven months prior.
We dropped Petra and Eric off first. And then as we swung around to Terminal C, he asked me.
“You leaving Brooklyn?”
“Yeah…Been here seven months…”
“You’ll miss it…”
“I think I will…”
“It gets in your blood.”
He paused. He is filled with Brooklyn. Its in not in his blood, it is his blood—Prospect Park and 7th Ave. Bay Ridge. Gowanus. Down to Brighton Beach up to Green Point. It surges through ever little capillary and artery surging him to life. His gratey voice tells me “Here we are” and I climb out.” He opens the back door opposite me and checks the back seat for anything left behind. I check it too. He nods at me through the car—each of us on one side highlighted by the morning light.
We unpack the trunk, “suitcase, sewing machine, this thing.” And he pauses—and I don’t know if it is because he sees it in my face or felt it in my voice or was aware of the waves of regret and woe and fear pouring off of me—but he tells me—looking me square in the eyes:
“You’ll be back.”
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Beginning of the Beginning
I decided to leave New York for many reasons.
Many reasons that aren't too interesting to re-hash. The fact is I left. I left and am now after six years I am returning to my old home.
I never left my Texas pride behind but, I think I felt more pride in the fact that I escaped, that I fled and did something not inside the restrictive walls of the Southern establishment. I still raucously defended Texas and the South and would actively argue with people who said they "were afraid to go down there," but I saw myself as a lucky one. And I suppose I still do. I take much joy in the fact that I lived in big cities without cars for six years, the fact that I lived a way of life completely and utterly alien to anything that I had known before it. I know that I am a better person for it--and I know that it kinda makes me a snob. And, snobbish still, I don't care, because I am so certain in its truth.
So returning feels more than anything like a defeat. A retreat. Being pulled back into the life that I so desperately (and seemingly successfully) cut away from. I never imagined myself coming back. For my sister, it has always been in the back of her mind, in her eventual plan. But for me? No. I said the same thing about Chicago when I was living there—the same thing was true. Perhaps even more bizarre for a I was never quite sure where the exact location of Chicago was until I got accepted into a school there. I have always known where Dallas is.
In August 2003 I left.
In April 2009 I returned.
And now I write about it.
Many reasons that aren't too interesting to re-hash. The fact is I left. I left and am now after six years I am returning to my old home.
I never left my Texas pride behind but, I think I felt more pride in the fact that I escaped, that I fled and did something not inside the restrictive walls of the Southern establishment. I still raucously defended Texas and the South and would actively argue with people who said they "were afraid to go down there," but I saw myself as a lucky one. And I suppose I still do. I take much joy in the fact that I lived in big cities without cars for six years, the fact that I lived a way of life completely and utterly alien to anything that I had known before it. I know that I am a better person for it--and I know that it kinda makes me a snob. And, snobbish still, I don't care, because I am so certain in its truth.
So returning feels more than anything like a defeat. A retreat. Being pulled back into the life that I so desperately (and seemingly successfully) cut away from. I never imagined myself coming back. For my sister, it has always been in the back of her mind, in her eventual plan. But for me? No. I said the same thing about Chicago when I was living there—the same thing was true. Perhaps even more bizarre for a I was never quite sure where the exact location of Chicago was until I got accepted into a school there. I have always known where Dallas is.
In August 2003 I left.
In April 2009 I returned.
And now I write about it.
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