11:25 a.m. - 2004-03-07
Friendships that end
You know, I just haven't been able to think of anything to write lately.
It's not that things haven't been happening. Actually, I've been quite busy, what with spring having sprung (and whenever I say "Spring has sprung!!" I also get this "Boing, boing, boing" sound effect in my head) and intensive gardening (which means Bruce working out with a shovel for long stretches of time, whilst I scratch my head over what sign the moon is in so I know if we can plant the onions or not) and the next Bring Your Own Bunny Party next weekend (we haven't decided if Miss Bunny should go - I'm afraid she'll chew someone's ankle off) and the endless art campaign I've been on (and by the way, after repeated requests to see my work I will post some pictures....soon. Honest.).
So I have been busy. But I think I haven't felt like writing because what I've been most psychically wrapped up in has been too deep and complicated for me to really put into words.
Part of it has been trying to figure out my place in the art world, which has been an ongoing question for many years. Am I wasting my life with this insane pursuit, or am I making the world at all better? Is it worth it to continue, even though I'm obviously not da Vinci or even de Kooning, and I hardly make any money?
I won't really get into this subject because for most people it really is pretty esoteric and boring and kind of equivalent, I think, to watching someone stare endlessly at their navel.
The other thing I've been really obsessed with is also hard to put into words. It's the fact that I feel like I am really saying goodbye to "up North", and all the friends I had there. I never thought this would happen, but I have been feeling over the last year that all my happy feelings about having close friends there are just that - happy feelings that really have no basis in reality.
The reality, should I choose to accept it, is that I have been drifting apart from these people since I moved down here, that they no longer value our friendships the same way I do (or did), and that some of them have even become people I don't like very much anymore. Partly this is because I've changed since leaving Boston, but it's also because I've become more aware of how narrow minded our friends are about the South, and their perceptions of what it's like here.
Perceptions which are based, usually, on what they have heard from other narrow minded people and not on any actual personal experiences. Most of them have never even been here. I'm tired of having to explain to these people how Alabamans are actually less racist than Bostonians, how the wages are not actually much lower and besides, the cost of living is dramatically cheaper so it more than works out, how the Alabamans I know are decently educated and culturally sophisticated.
I'm tired of answering questions like: "Do you REALLY have close friends down there?" (As though Southerners are so repulsive that I could never be friends with them.) "Is your house in good shape?" (Because, as we all "know", Southerners live in tar paper shacks.) "You don't have Vietnamese food down there, do you!" (Huh? We have several Vietnamese restarants here in Huntsville!)
Etcetera. Ad nauseum. When I tell my friends here about all this they just howl with laughter, and shake their heads at how people can be so goofy and ignorant.
When we announced, four and a half years ago, that we were moving here, I was amazed at the negative reactions we got from these folks. They didn't see it the way we did, as a fun way to explore a new part of the country while Bruce got some good college teaching experience under his belt. Instead it was like we were moving to "Deliverance" come to life, or perhaps an ongoing statewide KKK convention.
The negativity has only intensified, and I think at this point our old friends now see Bruce and I as a couple of goofy hicks as well. We've stop being the Bruce and Ruth that they liked and cared about, and instead we have morphed into backwards, uncool Alabamans. There are still a couple of people I want to keep seeing, but they are people who have made serious efforts to keep in touch (instead of me making all the effort, which is how it has become for most of my old friendships) and who are curious rather than negative about our lives here.
It's strange, and it makes me very sad, but I also feel like it's not even worth trying to straighten out. I am who I am at this point. I've never been one to run with a crowd, and I really just couldn't give a damn about my coolness quotient. In fact, the whole concept of "coolness" has always hit me as being pretty ridiculous and narrow minded. If I based my friendships on what people wore or if they knew the latest alternative music I would have missed out on some of the most fantastic people I've ever met. And I resent being written off as a friend because I live in a part of the US that has been deemed "uncool" - by people who have never actually lived here! I'm still the same person, at my core, as I was when I lived in hip and trendy Boston. I just have far fewer worries about money and way more land to grow flowers on, and far more time to do art, and I spend less money on trendy clothes.
But I also feel like the length of these friendships makes it hard for me to just walk away, no matter how bad they are feeling to me these days. And even the way I am talking about this shows how out of touch with reality I am. It doesn't matter whether I walk away or not. The fact that I hear from these people so seldom, and that when we see eachother they seem so totally uninterested in being with me, should tell me the status of our relationship. There really just isn't anything to walk away from anymore.
I tend to be a person who really cares a lot about friendships, far more than I think most people care. And so letting these friendships go, even though they have pretty much died, is not something I can do lightly. I guess I'm one of those mourners who lingers at the grave, hoping the deceased will somehow come alive and start scratching there way out of the coffin!
I hope I don't sound like I'm dissing everyone up North. I don't think most people have these attitudes, and honestly, I don't want it to sound like my fellow Yankees are a bunch of ignorant sluts!! Most of the people I see when I'm up there are just honestly curious what it's like here, and the questions they ask are along the lines of "Is it really as hot as they say it is?" (answer: it is waaaaaay hotter than they say it is!!) and "Do you know a good recipe for bar-b-que sauce?" (answer: no, I use Gibson's which is a local brand and fantastic!)
So see, don't you wish I had just not bothered to write today?!!
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