I wanted him to write: Y'all have a good marriage, now. And then sign our names. I said it loudly-almost demanded it. But he only wrote the y'all part with something about from below the M-D and best wishes. Up until late Saturday night I had returned to Boston for the weekend feeling at home. Having lived there for a year working with after-school programs and traveling all over the city to parts where the T does not go, knowing I had a grandmother from Arlington, Mass., and an uncle from Melrose, Mass., and after spending Friday night with two friends from Tennessee, I didn't feel the sting of being an outsider until right then: watching him sign his friend's wedding picture boarder at the South Shore Country Club in Hingham, Massachusetts.
Growing up in Leesburg, VA wasn't too different from growing up in Weymouth, MA. One just had a stronger accent than the other. Both served sugar packets on restaurant tables to put into iced tea rather than serving sweet tea and both were the suburbs outside of major cities. I had Waxie Maxie's (which eventually became Coconuts Music) and he had Newberry Comics. Both of our friends from high school and college have begun to get married in distinct rows and seasons. While staying at his parents’ house the whole weekend he made me egg sandwiches and coffee in the morning-mine over-hard while his were over-easy. We talked about how as children the only way we would possibly eat eggs was if they were scrambled, their colors of white and yellow blending into pepper.
The wedding was full of loud south shore Boston accents, a DJ who couldn't even maintain drunken middle-aged dancers on the makeshift wooden floor, and crazy, male-on-male dancing. Which is what happens when a bunch of friends from the same town get together to celebrate the beginning of something and the end of what is known to be true. There was a camera awkwardly recording the whole thing, a bright headlight shining down on everyone, reminding us that the bride and groom will actually be present during the viewing of this recording, alone and on a couch in their new life as husband and wife.
I called my Americorps friend who returned to Kentucky after her year in Boston. I told her that Boston wasn't the same without her, and that she needed to blow off the Kentucky Derby and come hang out with me. Even though I knew this wasn't possible, I still hoped she would call me and say she was waiting at the T stop for me to come pick her up. But she stayed at the Derby and instead, I bet on a horse. Storm in May. It lost. I lost two whole dollars.
All trips up to Boston must include seeing my friend from college who I used to date. Seeing him and thinking of peanut butter and jelly and potato chip sandwiches, The Shins and Ben Folds Five in his dorm room, and sitting in those mountains at the top of the hill with three crosses. It must include drinking in Cambridge or Brookline, then heading back out to Weymouth. Never the same way since there is always construction and will always be construction in the city of Boston. It is its constant. It must include visiting my old boss who now has two children with her partner. Looking at the two new bedrooms with butterflies and airplanes hanging from each ceiling and thinking about how we used to do work at a desk in one of those rooms and how now it is filled with imagination and clouds. It involves realizing how much has changed since I lived there.
Now when I talk to his family and friends I say I'm from the D.C. area. Then I don't have to deal with why I don't have any real accent, and I don't have to explain that my dad is originally from Vermont and my mom from Missouri. I don't have to explain that the one thing Leesburg is now known for is an outlet mall, and how if I had to pick a place to call home it wouldn't even be those mountains in North Carolina anymore. I want to ask them why they stay in the Boston area. Why no one really seems to leave. Why they want him to move back and how I can become a part of things even though I say my o's much differently. But the small talk always ends too soon, and we are onto the next subject, without hesitation.
Growing up in Leesburg, VA wasn't too different from growing up in Weymouth, MA. One just had a stronger accent than the other. Both served sugar packets on restaurant tables to put into iced tea rather than serving sweet tea and both were the suburbs outside of major cities. I had Waxie Maxie's (which eventually became Coconuts Music) and he had Newberry Comics. Both of our friends from high school and college have begun to get married in distinct rows and seasons. While staying at his parents’ house the whole weekend he made me egg sandwiches and coffee in the morning-mine over-hard while his were over-easy. We talked about how as children the only way we would possibly eat eggs was if they were scrambled, their colors of white and yellow blending into pepper.
The wedding was full of loud south shore Boston accents, a DJ who couldn't even maintain drunken middle-aged dancers on the makeshift wooden floor, and crazy, male-on-male dancing. Which is what happens when a bunch of friends from the same town get together to celebrate the beginning of something and the end of what is known to be true. There was a camera awkwardly recording the whole thing, a bright headlight shining down on everyone, reminding us that the bride and groom will actually be present during the viewing of this recording, alone and on a couch in their new life as husband and wife.
I called my Americorps friend who returned to Kentucky after her year in Boston. I told her that Boston wasn't the same without her, and that she needed to blow off the Kentucky Derby and come hang out with me. Even though I knew this wasn't possible, I still hoped she would call me and say she was waiting at the T stop for me to come pick her up. But she stayed at the Derby and instead, I bet on a horse. Storm in May. It lost. I lost two whole dollars.
All trips up to Boston must include seeing my friend from college who I used to date. Seeing him and thinking of peanut butter and jelly and potato chip sandwiches, The Shins and Ben Folds Five in his dorm room, and sitting in those mountains at the top of the hill with three crosses. It must include drinking in Cambridge or Brookline, then heading back out to Weymouth. Never the same way since there is always construction and will always be construction in the city of Boston. It is its constant. It must include visiting my old boss who now has two children with her partner. Looking at the two new bedrooms with butterflies and airplanes hanging from each ceiling and thinking about how we used to do work at a desk in one of those rooms and how now it is filled with imagination and clouds. It involves realizing how much has changed since I lived there.
Now when I talk to his family and friends I say I'm from the D.C. area. Then I don't have to deal with why I don't have any real accent, and I don't have to explain that my dad is originally from Vermont and my mom from Missouri. I don't have to explain that the one thing Leesburg is now known for is an outlet mall, and how if I had to pick a place to call home it wouldn't even be those mountains in North Carolina anymore. I want to ask them why they stay in the Boston area. Why no one really seems to leave. Why they want him to move back and how I can become a part of things even though I say my o's much differently. But the small talk always ends too soon, and we are onto the next subject, without hesitation.
2 comments:
I know what you mean...never really knowing how to explain that I feel like I'm from all the places I've lived...but I usually just go with the town that built outlets practically on top of my summer camp.
i'm daydreaming about that guy's Marky Mark dance right now...
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