Elbow Room

I first realized it when I flew home for my cousin's wedding in October: I'd never before been so happy to find myself at Newark Airport. Then it happened again as my plane landed at Logan and I walked out into the terminal. For four days I've re-entered a world of car horns and obscenities, and I've never had such a distinct feeling of coming home.

As I stood on the T this morning simultaneously cursing the group of shouting teenagers in my car and feeling immensely grateful for their existence, I began to wonder about these stereotypes of Southerners as being nicer and Northeasterners as being not necessarily mean but unconcerned with the welfare of their fellow humans. Now that I live in the South I’m seeing how much truth there is to those supposed differences, but as a born and raised Northerner I always feel compelled to defend the detachment: that’s what feels right to me, and I’d like to think that doesn’t make me inherently less nice.

What occurred to me on the T is that there’s just a lot more physical space for people to spread out in the South, and in my favorite cities (New York and Boston) there are so many more people crammed into the available space. In Nashville my apartment isn’t flanked on all sides by neighbors, and it’s more than spitting distance from the building next door. When I go to the far side of town (which is much farther away than the far side of Boston), I get in my own car and have however many cubic feet of space (and sound and attempt at thermal regulation) all to myself. In Boston you’re constantly surrounded by people – roommates, upstairs and downstairs neighbors through thin ceilings and floors, next door apartments with windows so close you could reach in from your room, jam-packed subway cars and buses, sidewalks full of pedestrians – so in order to maintain any sense of personal space you have to manufacture it for yourself.

Northeasterners are “mean” simply out of self-preservation.

It’s not that someone from Boston necessarily cares any less about other humans, but if you let concern for others surface even half the time you’re in close proximity to other people you’ll be completely overwhelmed by caring for a vast sea of humanity. In Tennessee it’s much easier to attempt connection with a large percentage of the people you encounter because on any given day there are so many fewer people who will come close enough to your personal space for interaction.

Obviously not everyone responds to these situations according to the stereotypes, but I think that if you grow up in the Northeast then you are much more likely to develop the apparently prickly exterior necessary to preserve some semblance of personal space, just as if you grow up with a lot of siblings you tend to be aggressive about staking your claim on things you want (lest someone else get there first). Yes, some people find themselves better suited to the environment opposite that of their own childhood, and some people feel equally comfortable in both sorts of places.

I think I’m a true Northeasterner in this sense, which is why I feel so at home when I’m surrounded by people who will honk and swear and cut you off without thinking twice. To me that’s just how you stake out your space in the world. My subconscious definition of "home" seems to include dense population and the attendant survival techniques. But defining "home" is another story for another day.....

The Move

The following episodes chronicle my move from Boston to Nashville in the middle of August, 2008. They were written at various stages, not in chronological order, so please forgive the tenses.

Episode 1 - Packing and Preparing

I've known for about four months that I'd be moving to Nashville this August. Early in the summer I started packing up clothes to take to Goodwill and posting crap on Craigslist that I knew I wouldn't want to take with me. I actually managed to do a really good job of starting early and planning ahead, for most things, and by the time I went out of town a week before moving day I had things pretty well under control.

I did, in fact, take a three day vacation less than a week before I was slated to move halfway across the country.... and I recommend it to anyone who's thinking of moving. Before I left I had gotten most of my stuff packed, and then I was able to walk away and not think about any of it for three glorious days in the Adirondacks. (The lake was beautiful, the mountains were beautiful, the company was perfect, the cupcakes were delicious. What more could you ask for?)

So I returned from my vacation with four full days to prepare, and on Friday I was to drive away with everything I still owned (i.e. that I hadn't sold over the internet) in the tiniest trailer rentable from U-Haul and the back of my glorious 1996 station wagon. Good plan, right?

The week was, of course, jam-packed with pre-leaving friend time. Perhaps I should've slept a little more, or spent a little longer on the moving part of things and less on the "OMG I won't see you for, like, three whole months!!" part of things, but "should" is a funny word, when you think about it. And if things had gone according to plan it all would've worked out just fine.

The plan began to run off its rails on Tuesday, I think it was, when my aforementioned glorious 1996 station wagon began acting funny. And by "acting funny" I mean "accelerating by itself, without me stepping on the gas." It felt sort of like a jet getting ready for takeoff. And then it stopped, so by the time I took it to my trusty (read "amazingly awesome and wonderful") mechanic there was no problem for him to diagnose. Right.

I retrieved the car from the mechanic and decided I'd just really really hope that nothing would go wrong again until I was in Tennessee. Alas, the jet engine started preparing for liftoff again as I was on my way to U-Haul to collect my little trailer. By the time I got home with the trailer it had gotten bad enough to incite rather a lot of screaming and swearing, and a phone call to my parents to say "HELP!! WHAT DO I DO?!?!??"

Long story short (there was a lot of unhappiness and NOT PANICKING and frantic phoning) - I ended up calling a lovely moving company who were able to schedule me on only 24 hours' notice. They picked up my stuff Friday morning, and I was left with just myself and a handful of things to truck home in my death-mobile, I mean station wagon.

And, of course, through those last three days were the goodbyes. Not really goodbyes, I guess: more like "talk to you online"s and "see you at Thanksgiving"s. They still weren't fun, not even a little bit. But since I couldn't pack all of my friends into the car and take them with me...beers were drunk, dinners were eaten, and leave was taken. I was, it seemed, on my way.

Episode 2 - Seven Hours from Boston

The drive from Boston to northern New Jersey normally takes about four and a half hours. Now that I was sans trailer, that was about the time I expected to take for phase one of the actual moving part of this whole escapade. I should, however, have anticipated Friday-afternoon-in-August traffic. I couldn't really anticipate the monsoons.

The good news is that having the entire contents of Lake Champlain dumped over my car seemed to keep it from acting up for most of the trip. It got a bit cranky about taking three hours to get to I84 at the Connecticut border (which normally takes an hour), and was threatening to take out the sedans in front of me in the last bit of that interminable crawling - leaping ahead every time I took my foot off the brake. But as I crossed into state two of my nine state (total) trip, the rain apparently cooled off the grumpy bits enough that they were willing to behave. (The rain also chased me off the road and into a rest area until it slowed down enough that I no longer felt that I really ought to have been in an ark.)

The Camry and I did successfully make it to NJ, and I even managed to not fall over upon exiting the house. My parents seemed slightly concerned about my well being, but after feeding me they decided I had revived sufficiently and could be put to bed. After sleeping, well, almost not at all and then taking 75% longer than normal for the trip, being put to bed was like a gift. It was a brief respite before the next episode was to begin.

Episode 3 - Maybe This Drive is Longer Than I Though

According to Google Maps, the drive from NJ to TN is approximately 12 hours. Of course, Google Maps doesn't have to stop and pee. Or get a sandwich from Subway and clean the windshield. And so, eleven hours in, my father and I are stopped at a Super 8 just outside Knoxville.

We thought that stopping before Knoxville would be good because 1. it's already been a long day, and 2. starting about 90 miles back there have been all sorts of signs about I40 being closed downtown. We figured this way we could plan our alternate route and not have to default to the detour that may or may not be terrible and/or backed up with horrible traffic.

So here we are with Ladysmith Black Mambazo on the television.... and I think I'd like to go home now, please.

Episode 4 - Welcome to the Central Time Zone

There's a sign along I-40 between Knoxville and Nashville informing travelers that they've crossed into the next time zone. I'm not sure exactly what it says because I was too busy telling my mother, over the phone, that my father and I were crossing the time zone line. I was pretty excited.

The whole last day of driving was a bit of a roller coaster both literally and figuratively. We were past the proper mountains, but it turns out that Tennessee is all rolling hills, and of course as we approached our destination there came ever more frequent interjections from my side of the car, along the lines of "OMG I live in Tennessee now" and "what have I done??"

The scenery was quite pretty, and if I managed to adequately capture any of it with my random shots through the car windows I'll post them here.

Eventually we started to see signs of greater population density, and then we got a glimpse of the buildings of downtown Nashville before the beltway swept us off around the city to our final destination. My new home. In Tennessee. Where I live now.

Exactly where I live now happens to be an awesome one bedroom apartment in the upstairs of an adorable house. (My two new friends even, upon pulling into the driveway, began exclaiming how totally cute it is. They happen to be very male friends who wouldn't normally go on about the cuteness of something such as a house.) I am slowly collecting furniture and trying to make it feel like home, but mostly I'm waiting for the movers to arrive with my stuff. (I'm also waiting for the coolest company in Nashville to bring me things from far-off Ikea.)

Downstairs from my awesome apartment are two even awesomer ladies, Priscilla and Lila. I love Priscilla and Lila. From the first time I talked to Priscilla I knew I liked her, and she's even cooler in person. Lila is Priscilla's mother, and you know what they say about the apple and the tree. I totally lucked out with this apartment and these landladies/neighbors/friends. I think once my stuff gets here I'll have to bake them some cookies as a small token of my gratitude for the welcome they've given me. (Though I bet they can bake circles around me.)

I will definitely post a few photos of The Apartment once I get them uploaded to the computer and figure out which ones I want to show the world. I'm hoping to post lots of photos in the coming weeks and months so y'all can see for yourselves what this Nashville business is all about.

Of course, the best way to see it is in person, and by the time you get here my air mattress might finally be inflated......

A Tale of Two Cities

I want to go down to 3rd and Lindsley and run into all the people I used to see at the Lounge. I want a spicy chocolate chocolate chip cookie from Fido after dinner at Diva. I want two homes and a private plane.

I want to tell my friends that I’m not really leaving, I’ll just have a slightly longer drive to meet up with them. I want to believe that there will be no sense of loss, just a geographical redistribution. I want to say that I know it won’t be easy, but what’s (and who’s) important won’t change. I don’t know how it’ll work, I just know that it will.

Things You Leave Behind

It's funny how things can change so fast. One day you're meandering through your twenties, minding your own business, and the next thing you know you're a few months away from uprooting completely and starting a new life in a new time zone - new apartment, new friends, new school (for the first time in a long time). New you. And there's a lot you'll have to leave behind.

- Impromptu dinner parties with The Girls, who make you laugh harder than anyone you've ever known.
- Friday nights out at The Spot, where you're genuinely happy to see the people who stop to say hello.
- Ice skating in the park.
- Ice cream cones in January.
- That one view of the city that you still love, even on days when you can't wait to leave town.
- Your roommate's cat who barfs at least once a week but still manages to be quite endearing.
- The dive bar in the 'burbs you all end up at until much too late on a weeknight because you just can't help yourselves.
- Remembering what used to be in the storefronts where the chain restaurants have since moved in.
- Those rare perfect days when the wind lets up and the sky is the most beautiful shade of blue.
- The friend's family who have taken such good care of you when you needed it most.
- The friend with the extremely expressive face to match the extremely snarky sense of humor. The friend you've known since at least two lifetimes ago. The new friend who you hope won't get lost in the move. The friend who helped this whole change to happen in the first place.

And so much more. Bad stuff too, but you never think of the bad stuff when the melancholy of leaving sets in. It's all wistful glances backward at the good times that were had.

There are many reasons to go, better than the reasons for staying. The new town, new school, new career path, new you all promise to be not just new but improved - that's the big selling point, right? You'll be new and improved and there will always be long drives back to visit and see how much has changed since you left.

It was twenty years ago that you cried over the ugly, broken dining room chandelier that was being replaced. Even then you knew that the new light would be so much better, but you couldn't help being sad for the loss of the one you'd always known. Is trading one city for another any more or less trivial? Any more or less difficult? At least Boston won't be sent to the garbage dump on Monday morning.