To live in the South, the deep South, what would your mind picture? Me, sitting in my yard filled with a humid and gentle breeze? Late in October, in a long, dangerous drought but somehow everything around me is mostly green? Listening to the breeze and birds, yes. But also the persistent sound of traffic? Never ceasing, always humming. So much life, human life mainly, around me. Would you picture me, high 70’s in fall which likely will be December too, saying y’all and loving my sun but being firmly in the city?
I live in the south and part of me remembers that but mostly I don’t. Mostly I know I am in a city. A city I love and am not sure I really want to ever leave. A city painted many colors by many hands and I like how bright that makes it.
It is also imperfect, very painfully imperfect this city. Oppressive and unkind. And raw, like the humanity that fills it. There are, however, more different types of people fighting it out, sometimes making it here. Pockets of all sorts of communities all over and multiple of them too. Multiple homes in multiple neighborhoods for people to collect in their community.
Deep in the south I live, a place generally very white and very dedicated to being that. And it is part of this city too. It also surrounds me. Some find no issue with that. Are proud of that. And maybe I could use a little more pride, less guilt my partner would say. I just don’t know what to be proud about. We have never seemed to willingly treat others well and truly equal, man or critter. But he is right, guilt is not a pretty color on me either.
So I sit here, on a day that probably would feel exactly like summer somewhere else and delight in my city. No, I wasn’t born here but after two decades, it is mine. Just like it is everyone else’s.
I live in a funny part of town. Nice enough actually. Houses with foundations and old, big trees shading streets. Yet it isn’t terribly gentrified. There are white people sure, there are everywhere except the poorest of neighborhoods yet to be bettered. But the families here have lived here for a long while. The houses are old. Ours from the 50’s and a web of sloppy, winding internet lines crisscross the neighborhood and, delightedly, our back yard. It is my favorite thing about this house – our critter highway. Safe enough passage for possums and squirrels, the occasional rat. Possums, after squirrels, are the most frequent travelers and I love seeing them. Slowly crossing on a tight rope. If the dogs are out, they jump and bark in vain. And thankfully, the possums don’t play dead when on this wire, falling stupidly and fatally to the ground. But they do freeze. They just stop. Holding tight they move no farther until the dogs are put in and our lights are no longer pointing at them. We can be outside, talking and enjoying, they don’t mind that, but they would like some privacy in their crossing. They always hate attention. They’d rather you think them dead than an active being on Earth. But in the background, all around our city and suburban homes, they crawl and live. They aren’t more disease carrying than a squirrel. They stay out of our way better than anything, never invading our homes or trashcans. But they are here. Somehow, they survived us cutting down the wild land, breeding cunning predictors like cats and dogs. They don’t mind our insecticides or pesticides. They are here. To be our companions, even when we don’t know it. To remind our lands they were once wild. And to sometimes eat a mosquito.
Would you imagine any of this about my surroundings? No and it isn’t what I dream of either. I crave wild land and I wouldn’t tame it. I would marvel at its design and networks of life, exploring forever. Yet I wouldn’t want to be isolated, all our community should be close by, working together. I dream of worlds no longer. This dream speaks of me. Informs my current choices and delights. But it is dangerous. If held tight, it becomes an excuse to not be reveling in my now. So let’s turn back there, to my now. To the clanking of construction, humming of cars, squawking of birds, and rustling, undulating sounds of wind. And I will tell you I am in love with sitting here, writing you, describing my city. I am in love because it is enough. Maybe not ideal. Probably very far from optimal but undoubtedly enough. That is, when I pause to be in it. When I breath and bring my body into my day.
I almost didn’t come out here to write you. I found myself unexpectedly with time for a break. Instantly my mind went to my list of tasks to be done – clean, bills, etc. But I could feel the danger in such a pursuit. Feel the prioritization of accomplishment over being. A priority, I am discovering, key to my constant distress. So I went to stretch and breath on my rug. And then I thought I might sweep. But in the bathroom the window was open and I heard the wind call me. “Come site in me. Come write in me. I am worth it.” So I made some minty tea and came. And now a smile sits on my face and my brain isn’t scrambled and my body isn’t lost. I am all here and ready to get back to the work that pays for this house in this city.
-El An Gilman-