NOW Living Downtown!

NOW Living Downtown! In the Quietness... I wake and I wonder if I have missed anything- maybe some minute detail, an item of clothing, to pay a bill, to make a call, to get to an appointment, to catch a flight- and, I wonder if I have missed the big things. Did I forget to have a relationship? Did I neglect getting married? Did I let falling in love slip past me? Was it something like leaving the milk in the refrigerator too long- that, if it's not glaring at you, you just forget about it and go on with your life? Is it possible that I have waited too late for some very important things in my life? I ask those questions, and then I think about the fullness of my life-the feeling that "I haven't missed a thing..." the knowing that I have been in the where and now of my life, and that I have rarely wished that I was somewhere other than exactly where I was. I remember growing up, and feeling like the world was happening elsewhere-that there were things to do and see and be "out there" somewhere, beyond 3107 Westmont Drive-and, would lay in my bed, or sit in my tree house (which was actually built on telephone poles) and wonder and dream about other places. My fascination with travel posters and travel brochures and globes and maps probably concerned my mother-momentarily--and my interest in missionaries-not necessarily because of their mission work, but because of their lives in some place that was "other" than mine--different in every way, and I wanted to peek into those lives. The slides that the missionaries would show in church were the very best part of my religious life growing up-because I was taken somewhere else, and removed from the captivity of the pews at Piney Heights Baptist Church (where the bondage was crushing and debilitating.) Then, at 15, I wrote an essay on "The Monuments of Washington, DC, and won a weeklong trip to Washington as a student winner of the Rural Electric Cooperative. I was joined by Darlene Hale, of my same high school, and Mildred Cone, of another local school. (at 50, I still remember their names, and schools, and their essays)-We flew from Columbia, SC, to Washington Dulles, my very first time to fly-my first time to fly--my first time to FLY. Meeting our chaperones in Columbia, they were a middle-aged couple who were NOT my parents, or church members, or teachers, but, people from a different place and a different way of life- and, I wanted THAT way of life. Arriving in Wash., we went to our hotel-now that I remember it, it was something like a Days Inn, or Motel 6, and it was teaming with high school students from all over the US who had won the same contest in their counties for their Rural Electric Cooperatives. It was years before I understood that it was as much the "Rural" and "Cooperative" that held us together, and gave us a common bond. We were all from areas that had been some of the last to get electric power and service, and had obtained it by our families and neighbors becoming a cooperative-and going after the power grid on their own-- we literally were wired together without knowing it, the children of mid-century pioneers, and from my suburban setting, to my roomates from Nebraska and Wyoming, who marvelled at Power poles and tall buildings, we shared a common heritage. Richard Nixon was in the White House, and we would see him on the Presidential Yacht, and meet his daughter Julie at the White House. We would shake hands with Senator Thurmond and Hollings, and we would walk the steps of the capital as honored guests. We would have meals with our congressmen, and we would stay up late and swim in the hotel pool. It felt like freedom, it felt like life to me. 34 years later, I see that trip as my emancipation and as my first glimpse of what was possible OUT THERE. Because it was in the early 70's, when men and boys were growing their hair longer, ala the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, my parents church had declared a prohibition on long hair on men (and short skirts on women, and pants on women, and women..and fun, and sex, drugs and rock and roll...) my hair was shorter than all the other boys on that trip. I recall being in the hotel pool one night, and being asked if I was in the Army-I didn't get it, but, they said "your hair is like a buzz cut...were you drafted?" I came back with a resolve to grow my hair longer- actually over my ears- but, my mother and pastor prevailed--by the time I could grow my hair as long as I wanted, nobody was growing their hair that long--did I miss that, too? I met a girl on the trip named Randi, and she was the "beuty queen"-having been crowned Miss SC Rural Electric Coop- apparently a big deal then-and she and I became fast friends-and we went to our first real Italian restaurant in the same group-and had garlic bread, and salad, and pasta- and, it wasn't the Pizza House in Aiken, it was a bonafide Italian restaurant in Washington- and then, they exposed us to Chinese food one night- and I was in heaven- Randy, Darlene, Mildred and I sitting together at a table, no adults, just the SC kids all fascinated and terrified and hungry for more and anxious-and what if the world IS this big? What if we CAN go to these places again? My tree house seemed very small and very far away- the Carole King song "So Far Away" was on the radio-- and, that's where I wanted to be when I returned home--far away-- back in Washington, in New York, In LA, in a city with a heartbeat-where I could sleep with my window open and hear the sounds of traffic and people talking in the night-- and, here I am now-- in the quietness of a spring night-- with my window open, listening to the traffic go by on the street below my window- and hear the voices of people after the "Day of the Immigrant" protests- still energized and hopeful. I'm in the 35th largest city in the US, but, for me- it is still the "out there...." that I had always hoped for-and, there's a Rural Electric cooperative nearby......dream.