Hometown, USA
This weekend I took the LIRR nearly to its end with my friend Kristen to visit her parents. I love accompanying friends to their homes and sneaking a glimpse into their small years. My family moved around the eastern seaboard when I was growing up so I am both intrigued and a little jealous of friends who can return to houses that hold their entire lives.
When someone asks where I am from, I usually have a hard time answering. I often say "Baltimore" since it is both where I was born and where I went to high school, but sometimes I just explain that I've moved a lot. Inevitably then a person asks "Military brat?" and I say, "Oh no, gynecology brat."
The field of Ob/Gyn is somewhat of a family business on my dad's side of the family. I was born in Baltimore into rat-ridden residents' housing. All I really remember is very hot and wet summers and my brother's arrival two years later. Not long after that we packed up for West Virginia, a small "city" called Beckley where the coal mines were closed. We spent eight years in WVa— I came to see hiking, white water canoeing, and endless forests of rhododendrons as well as discarded toilets in the front yard, driving pick-ups at age 7, and beauty contests for my first grade classmates whose mothers carried cans of hairspray as tall as their daughters as the norm in life. Perhaps it was my thickening West Virginia accent or the fear of bible-belt high school cirriculum, but we returned to Baltimore for my middle school and high school careers. My parents now live in Western New York so both Baltimore and West Virginia have blurry and warm places in my past.
I was lucky enough to meet K a couple of years ago in one of those happy collisions of friends and acquaintances. I have a handful of friendships with women that now feel like sisters—and most of them I've been lucky enough to know for over ten years. When I first met Kristen we were often out late at bars with her boyfriend and my close boy friend. She seemed quiet at first but then everytime she opened her mouth she threw something either hilarious or insanely observant into the conversation. Lucky for me she was able to see past my disturbingly loud laugh and wanted to talk.
There are many reasons that I love K now, and I have to admit that a big slice of it is that she is somehow able to make the people around her feel wholly cared for. I haven't quite put my finger on it, but another part of our friendship is our slight difference in years and K's uniquely positive outlook about different facets of making mistakes and growing-up. She imparts some of the most insightful advice and has a sense of humor about almost everything—a trait I would love to emulate.
K is from a small town on the North Fork and by small town I mean main street, porches with paint-peeling, "How are your kids?" at the dime store, and coffee and a plate piled with biscotti and scones from the bakery where the owner waves away my cash. I lived in what could be considered a "small town" in West Virginia but as non-natives and a family who lived by and for women's health and choice in the middle of Jesusland, we were always outsiders.
The first night, we stepped off the LIRR and into K's family kitchen. Her dad poured glasses of wine and asked where I was from immediately lauding John Waters—I felt right at home. Even K's, "Daaad, too much information!" comments could have come straight from my mouth at my family's table. I giggled a lot over the weekend, able to see the frustrations of relationships with parents from the outsider bird's eye, able to see a tiny bit of K's teenage self— and then a bigger bit via home videos.
We went shopping with her mom on Saturday, who often waited in the car patiently while we ran from outlet entrance to entrance under the veil of Carpenters' songs spilling over the parking lot. We became absorbed by the couches in PJs, watched TV with her parents, had a delicious dinner out "on the town," and walked around the shops on the waterfront in the chilly January sun.
We climbed back on the LIRR Sunday and I took away a bigger piece of K's history, I had been able to identify some of her mannerisms and humor from her generous parents inside the rooms of a house where they had spent all their years. In the end, for my family, I am happy that my parents moved us several times. I am now made up of varied states, subtly different, and it's allowed my mother and father to find happiness in their life's work—one of the most important lesson of my life. I guess another part of all this moving around is a deep appreciation for finding friends somewhere in between where they're from and where there going, and trying to understand both ends. I had an amazing weekend outside of Brooklyn with hundreds of stars, so powerful and varied without light pollution, a grown-up warm kitchen with endless utensils, conversation, and pets, sleeping in, staying up, and getting to know and love my friend just a little bit more.
When someone asks where I am from, I usually have a hard time answering. I often say "Baltimore" since it is both where I was born and where I went to high school, but sometimes I just explain that I've moved a lot. Inevitably then a person asks "Military brat?" and I say, "Oh no, gynecology brat."
The field of Ob/Gyn is somewhat of a family business on my dad's side of the family. I was born in Baltimore into rat-ridden residents' housing. All I really remember is very hot and wet summers and my brother's arrival two years later. Not long after that we packed up for West Virginia, a small "city" called Beckley where the coal mines were closed. We spent eight years in WVa— I came to see hiking, white water canoeing, and endless forests of rhododendrons as well as discarded toilets in the front yard, driving pick-ups at age 7, and beauty contests for my first grade classmates whose mothers carried cans of hairspray as tall as their daughters as the norm in life. Perhaps it was my thickening West Virginia accent or the fear of bible-belt high school cirriculum, but we returned to Baltimore for my middle school and high school careers. My parents now live in Western New York so both Baltimore and West Virginia have blurry and warm places in my past.
I was lucky enough to meet K a couple of years ago in one of those happy collisions of friends and acquaintances. I have a handful of friendships with women that now feel like sisters—and most of them I've been lucky enough to know for over ten years. When I first met Kristen we were often out late at bars with her boyfriend and my close boy friend. She seemed quiet at first but then everytime she opened her mouth she threw something either hilarious or insanely observant into the conversation. Lucky for me she was able to see past my disturbingly loud laugh and wanted to talk.
There are many reasons that I love K now, and I have to admit that a big slice of it is that she is somehow able to make the people around her feel wholly cared for. I haven't quite put my finger on it, but another part of our friendship is our slight difference in years and K's uniquely positive outlook about different facets of making mistakes and growing-up. She imparts some of the most insightful advice and has a sense of humor about almost everything—a trait I would love to emulate.
K is from a small town on the North Fork and by small town I mean main street, porches with paint-peeling, "How are your kids?" at the dime store, and coffee and a plate piled with biscotti and scones from the bakery where the owner waves away my cash. I lived in what could be considered a "small town" in West Virginia but as non-natives and a family who lived by and for women's health and choice in the middle of Jesusland, we were always outsiders.
The first night, we stepped off the LIRR and into K's family kitchen. Her dad poured glasses of wine and asked where I was from immediately lauding John Waters—I felt right at home. Even K's, "Daaad, too much information!" comments could have come straight from my mouth at my family's table. I giggled a lot over the weekend, able to see the frustrations of relationships with parents from the outsider bird's eye, able to see a tiny bit of K's teenage self— and then a bigger bit via home videos.
We went shopping with her mom on Saturday, who often waited in the car patiently while we ran from outlet entrance to entrance under the veil of Carpenters' songs spilling over the parking lot. We became absorbed by the couches in PJs, watched TV with her parents, had a delicious dinner out "on the town," and walked around the shops on the waterfront in the chilly January sun.
We climbed back on the LIRR Sunday and I took away a bigger piece of K's history, I had been able to identify some of her mannerisms and humor from her generous parents inside the rooms of a house where they had spent all their years. In the end, for my family, I am happy that my parents moved us several times. I am now made up of varied states, subtly different, and it's allowed my mother and father to find happiness in their life's work—one of the most important lesson of my life. I guess another part of all this moving around is a deep appreciation for finding friends somewhere in between where they're from and where there going, and trying to understand both ends. I had an amazing weekend outside of Brooklyn with hundreds of stars, so powerful and varied without light pollution, a grown-up warm kitchen with endless utensils, conversation, and pets, sleeping in, staying up, and getting to know and love my friend just a little bit more.
posted by Rebecca at 9:12 AM
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