I miss the South

Lately, I've been missing the South. Like never before since I moved to the city, I miss it. It's a movie playing in my head, pausing more than it moves forward, a series of images of things I equate with the South. One moment, I see my foot on the dash, wind blowing through my hair, music cranked up, watching a lightening storm as the sun goes down in the distance. A little later, I see blackness as I wake up in the middle of the night to a loud crack of thunder. God, I miss thunder and lightening and storms more than anything. It doesn't storm up here. It rains for short amounts of time, and even then it sounds so different because it's pitter-pattering on my AC in the window, not on my roof. And thunder in the distance just doesn't exist in New York. I crave that.

Then it's something vague, like a grassy hill. Or those hills in Mississippi, on the drive from Birmingham to Oxford, that rise and fall against the blunt flatness of the Delta to the south. I remember driving that route on the prettiest days the universe ever threw together, and thinking, even then - when I absolutely took it for granted - how the sky seemed to stretch on forever and the clouds were the happy residents of that infinity. The grass stalks on the sides of the highway were tall, and depending on the time of year, they were green or yellow or brown, sometimes all three. But they were always there, and they seemed to constantly sway in the wind, all the blades moving together in one swooping motion, as if they were waving at me along my journey.


It's odd, because I'm not sad in New York. Maybe I just haven't gotten to that point yet, but I oddly feel sort of comforted by my ardent longing for the South. Maybe because it comes from somewhere outside of myself - or at least that's my inclination, since I'm certainly not forcing myself to feel this way - I think each missin' pang brings me closer to where I need to be and what I need to do. As if the script to that movie in my head isn't completed, but is actively being written. The plot is revealed to me in flashes, and the ending doesn't even exist yet.

Remember when I told y'all I'm reading North Toward Home by Willie Morris? Well the same day I started reading it, I noticed a note on the last page, written by one of the previous owners. When I tried to read it, I couldn't decipher the handwriting, which might be referred to as "chicken scratch," and looks like it could have been written by my mom or her mama or her momma before. Then I sort of forgot about it. Yesterday, I looked at it again and it was perfectly clear to me.

I finished!
Great day in the morning
I finished
1/22/88
betw Boca & Atlanta
You come back now you hear!

My birthday is 1/21/86. I was two years and two days old when this person finished the book and felt compelled to make a note of it. Also, no one above the Mason-Dixon line says "great day in the morning." Ever. AND, don't people normally say "y'all come back now ya hear"? This person, for some reason, replaced the "y'all" with "you." And 22 years later, I read it at a particularly vulnerable time, when I miss the South and home with every part of myself. Art - and therefore life - is a complete mindfuck sometimes.

When I read it on the train yesterday, I started laugh-crying. I'm sure I looked insane. But it's just like, OK, universe - after the message this book already gave me when I was sitting in the window of the salon in Chelsea, I can't ignore it.

I'm coming home. I don't know when. I don't even know where or why or how, but I just feel the truth of that statement, without even understanding it.

home, home, i'm already there

north toward home

I feel like two people
Living in two places
At the same time.
Like never before in my life,
I feel as though I live a divided life.
 
I'm just an Etch-A-Sketch filled with sand,
A couple knob turns, and a line down the middle -
A couple shakes, and
It's gone.

I live in the breath of trees
Moving in the moonlight,
Crickets chirping in their shadows
Beneath tiny blankets of humidity,
Crafted carefully just for them.

And then under a blanket of my own,
I feel legs rub together,
Making a song: katydid, katydidn't,
Katy did, Katy didn't.
Their accompaniment:
Sunkissed hair splashed across a pillow.

Sitting on the subway,
A pretty little girl wearing a peace sign ring
Smiles at me under her blonde bangs.
Tunnel wind whooshes by,
The wheels crack-a-lack on the tracks,
And I am happy.

The subway ghost tells me,
And all of us,
To please, pretty, mind the gap.
I feel the city,
For the hundredth thousandth first and last time,
Wrap its arms around me.
And I am happy.

several more things

1. Last week I went to the LCD Soundsystem show at Terminal 5. The following is a video I took on my iPhone of the last part of their closing set. They played "New York, I Love You," obvs, then the chorus from Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind," which I found kitschy but also couldn't help loving, before releasing a hundred white balloons from the ceiling. The concert was amazing - my friend Brady and I were in the general admission standing area and we were surrounded by young people obsessed with themselves and obsessed with just being alive. This video is terrible, because I was jumping around and acting like a damn fool, but I feel that it adequately  represents the entirety of the concert, which consisted of me jumping around and acting like a damn fool. It was fucking infectious.



After the balloons dropped, Brady and I posed with one of them in front of a dumpster, natch.

2. In other news: I bought one of these.

And I am taking piano lessons. I grew up in an extremely musical household - I can trace my entire childhood based on what albums I was listening to with my parents (read: Queen, The Eagles, Chicago, Marvin Gaye, Luther Vandross, The Doobie Brothers, Journey, Sade, Roberta Flack, Mariah Carey, Celine Dion were all in the repertoire), and I danced my youth away - and once I got bigger I played the flute for seven years. I realized recently that I had lost that outlet, which makes no sense. I miss making music or at least being somehow involved with it. I've always always always wanted to learn how to play the piano, so I'm just diving into it. It requires some budgeting, of course, because this is New York, but it's totally worth it. And the harmonica purchase is an addendum to that. I also intend to learn how to play the guitar this summer. I'm an ambitious lady.

3. Speaking of being a lady, I spent all day Sunday helping my amazing bestie Jenny Anderson with a pin-up photo shoot on the roof of my friend's Brooklyn apartment. I spent the whole day looking around in gape-mouthed awe that I know so many beautiful, strong, talented women. Jenny is a clit tease and has only shown us a couple photos. Here is one of them. The lineup goes something like this: actress, writer, writer, actress, dancer, actress, writer, writer, actress, dancer, and of course, photographer (behind the lens). Kick. Ass. Ladies.

4. Feeling rather ladylike from the shoot, I went the other day to get a mani/pedi, and as I was sitting in the spa waiting to indulge myself, I started reading Willie Morris' memoir North Toward Home. The book chronicles his life, moving from Yazoo City, Mississippi to go to college in Texas before taking on New York City, where he became an accomplished writer and the editor of Harper's Magazine. He grew to be totally disenchanted with the city and ended up moving back to the South - of course, he took root in Oxford, where I went to college - and the book obviously details his relationship with both the South and the North, both his past and his present. Because Zac is moving to New Orleans at the end of the summer, and because I too yearn for the South and ponder daily a return to my roots, it is likely going to be an incredibly important book for me to read.

ANYWAY. As I sat in the window reading, the sun was pouring through the window as it set, framing the words on the glass. I looked down and the shadow it cast was scrawled across my book.

The universe can't really get any more direct than that.

in which I compare the South in Spring to... other activities

So I went home last Thursday for an extended weekend trip. It was glorious. I got in late Thursday night, feeling exhausted and sort of down about stuff blah blah blah, went to bed and woke up Friday morning pretty early and felt completely rejuvenated already. I looked outside and saw blooming flowers and green everywhere. I could feel a sort of Southern energy humming in the air, and it pulsed through my body excitedly. I had not felt that happy and in love and content for months. So, naturally, I wrote something to express what I was feeling.

I was half-asleep when I wrote this, still in bed in the fairly early morning hours. I did not think about what I was writing. It remains mostly unedited. This is probably as close as I've come thus far to just letting words literally flow through me and onto the page. I was sort of surprised to find myself comparing being in the South for the first time in months to having sex with someone you're completely in lust with. But, here it is. This is sort of... explicit. Definitely the most explicit thing I've posted on this blog. So if that kind of thing makes you queasy, on to the next bullet in your blog feed!








the south is sex

the south is sex
the south is
fucking
sex
right now.
I woke up this morning
looked
out
side
(it's so hot
you have to look through
the thick air
to see to the other side)
anyway
I looked outside
Perfect sunlight
Perfect green
Blooming
Bursting
pink
flowers
on the azalea bush
outside my childhood window.
I arched my back.
I wanted to masturbate
no
I wanted to fuck the South
bend over my bed
and let it fuck me from behind
hands gripping my ass
pulling my hair
pinching my nipples
god
so
slow
teasing my pussy
and clit
and heart
then faster.
hearts beating
faster
faster
writhing in my bed
imagining everyone and no one
imagining long, open roads
just driving
foot on the dash
(because I do that sometimes when I drive)
Why do I feel like this?
seduced to tears
so
fucking
seduced
by my hometown
my childhood
who I am and
who I used to be
Freedom
Freedom
Fucking
Freedom
I taste it here
I taste him in my mouth
Freedom
Happiness
Fucking my mouth
Exploding in my throat
letting it drip down my neck
I smile for years
I see myself
fat
and
happy
again
In his arms
he kisses my breasts
ribs
belly
hips
down
down
down
starts goin down on me
I grab his long hair
two glowing handfuls
and think
Maybe we just always want to be where we're not
But I never want New York
When I'm down here
When he's down there
New York doesn't like to eat pussy
or at least
she's never eaten mine
so no
I don't think that's it
I'm just lusting for the South
I just am
stop asking questions, all will be revealed
he said through licks
so I just laid back
and enjoyed
all the while feeling this pull
heart to heartland
heart
to
fucking
heartland
oh
my
god
his
fingers
inside
me
blissssssssssssssss
bliss.

she know where her clothes supposed to be

Y'all. I know my blog has kind of been all over the place recently, what with poems about love, sex, heartbreak, art, joy, life, etc etc. Hopefully you've enjoyed some of what I've written and haven't found it too heavy or whatever. And if you have, then that's OK. In the words of Gaga, you can leave. And in the words of me, fuck you.

HOWEVER. I'm feeling rather light and happy today, mostly because I'm going home to the dirty dirty tomorrow for a few days to see my parents, eat some good food, hear the rain, absorb the humidity, et al. I'm quite excited. As if the universe wanted to nudge me along in my excitement - and, speaking of poetry, this seems relevant - I was listening to my David Banner Pandora station this morning (oh yes - it's the shit) when Petey Pablo's Freak-A-Leek came on. I became visibly aroused. I remember driving around Birmingham in, like, the 10th grade bumping this song at full bass and rapping along with every word. I still know them all.

ANYWAY. Here's the video. He's from Raleigh, North Carolina, proving (once again) that all the best rap music comes from the South. DON'T PLAY.  It's true.

I picked not-the-official video because the official one was edited and omitted some of the best words in Petey's poetry. The only thing I despise more than edited rap music is the smell of bleach. Both things make me audibly gag.

Happy Hump Day!