Sitting at my parent’s house in Northeast Philadelphia, drinking a Yuengling Lager, listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, chain smoking in my dead grandfather’s pajamas and looking down at the first passport he was ever issued at the ripe age of 19 when he enlisted in the Navy and sailed off to Jerusalem. Thinking about life I guess. Wondering about death. Sifting through all the stuff in between. There’s a portable electric heater warming my too cold feet and the smell of smoke and my parents’ existence circling all around me. I’m thirty years old now. I don’t quite think I think about the actuality of that all too often. But I guess when you walk through your past and wander into some vaulted memories, well time just slows down and the reality of life and living and what that might mean to some comes sauntering into the old brain…and in the heart, the longing for some sense of understanding fights the synapses of logic.
This city has always had a hold on me. It shaped me, it taught me hard lessons, and it helped me to appreciate the deep beauty that lies within the ugliest of monsters. It’s never been a “nice” place in any sense of the word. And nothing has come easy here. There is no comfort that one should find in home. There is just the city. Its giant gaping mouth smiling in all of its harsh broken glory. Row homes, bleak and chipped and worn down shine like teeth in the most gruesome grin. This meaty heart is massive and pounding and rhythmically beats the days in and out of you. The train lines and bus lines and subway lines are the veins and arteries pushing the blood cells and the filth and the waste and the life that is the people through it’s insides. Tunnels carry us through the bowels and guts of the city, and graffiti of those dark wanderers lines the cavities…the space of no-sun, and the proof that we dwell exists, blatantly. You can feel the city breathing. You can smell its life force. The rivers, polluted as they are irrigate the pathways, and they carry new life and new commerce and they don’t stop, plugging away to the ocean. The neighborhoods change…so many diverse groups of people dot this metropolis. And each new place feels like a foreign country, or like a different organ in the body. No one place is the same, yet we are connected inherently by the “feeling” of this city, by the commanding DNA it orders upon us. We are blueprinted at an early age. A Philadelphian is a Philadelphian is a Philadelphian. Rich or poor, black or white, gay or straight, if you are here, chances are, you have SOME similarity to the others. And there are major differences, yes. But the same holds true if you are from here, or spend time here. And you can only understand if you possess it. And maybe in Texas, I forgot a bit. But when I deplaned at the Philly international airport, I felt my cell structure shifting. I heard my voice change. My thoughts moved differently. I was home.
I am in love with this place in a way I don’t have a full understanding of. I have no choice. I feel it in my bones; I feel it deep in my belly and in my chest. It works over me like the Holy Ghost. The grittiness washes over me every time. My palms get sweaty. All of my hopes and overwhelming intensity becomes heightened. My primal filthy instincts come welling up. My senses become ravaged. When I take to the street, I want to walk and walk and walk. I want to know every part of my devious, relentless lover. I want to match its unending lust. I want to soothe its destruction. I want to give back and I want to take and take and take. And I want to be able to beat the obstacles and pass the tests and make the shouting turn into whispers and promises.
I listened at an early age. My longing was created here. This city gave it to me. It tempted me. And I listened and I wandered. By the time I was old enough to know better I was exploring every neighborhood. I found streets and landmarks and histories. Each new place brought a new lesson, and a new tale. I worked every inch of the body of this place. I moved my hands all over and it became mine. And after I made my own promises, whispering over and over as I used this place up, I left. And after I left I came to realize, that I was not the user. I kept coming back for more, never quite being able to stay away. I moved to other cities and tried to love them, tried to let myself meld with them in the same intimate way I did here. My relationships were quick and lustful. They were instantly gratifying. I romanticized them and I lied to them and let them lie to me and I reveled in their obvious beauty. And still, I dreamt about home in the back of my mind. My memories playing out over and over again like images flickering on the wall from a dirty old projector. Dust floating about in the light that breaks the darkness. And when I come back. I am not forgiven. I must start over. And I may have my way, but the intimacy has changed. And I have changed. And I have changed. But I move my hands nonetheless, and I am alive no matter how hard or easy it is. I am forced into quiet reflective moments, and I often combat that with loud, violent protests of drinking, and yelling and raiding. And now, I am just quiet. With no rebel yell. Just with an understanding. A calm. Quiet. Strange. Unspoken. Understanding.
I listened better this time. I was forced to come here. I had to pay respect. I had to listen to my grandpa one more time. I had to hug my family. I had to pay attention. I had to shut my stupid foul immature boasting yelling unsure mouth. I had to wrestle my tongue to keep it fat and slimy in back, behind my teeth. I had to stop. Just stop. For a change. And I needed to listen. And not retort. Or give my side. Because really. My side doesn’t matter. And so I listened. I listened to everything. My body felt carried. I floated all over this place. And I was carried gently maybe, for the first time. Because I allowed it. And because I allowed it, it happened. And maybe because I’m thirty years old, I realized so much. And I saw things differently. And now, I’m scared to talk so much. Because listening is so nice.
My two dear friends and I shared a very intimate evening together. Our words working together in a song that hummed through my dreams. Their embraces seemed to last forever. Their laughter and knowing burned so bright in me. Our easy love passed around all night and awoke again after our dreaming time. Their simple touches, their tiny smiles, their dancing eyes, filled me with a feeling of closeness I hadn’t felt in awhile. I easily felt as though I didn’t deserve such a pure love and unspoken bond. But I gave them my heart in my own rough way as we sat and sipped beers on the rooftop, and danced to Roger Miller in the living room, and snuggled together, and woke together and ate breakfast and watched the rain slowly drizzle drizzle into the day. We laughed heartily and it filled me with such simple pleasure. And we reveled in this place. I sat with Erin on her front steps in South Philly and smoked and watched a woman in Muslim attire walk by, kicking trash out if the way in the sloppy wetness and talk too loudly on her cell phone, proclaiming “can you believe he tried to STAB me?” as if no one else in the world existed, and as if no one else could hear. And I walked along myself, alone that day, taking note of all of the angry homeless dogs who rule the streets, taking stock of all of the chicken bones stripped of their sustenance. I looked into the tired eyes, the somewhat smiles, the faces of many. I let the elevated train rock me back and fourth, feeling as though I was at church, listening, listening, listening to the Gospel of my city…preaching and preaching and preaching from those broken teeth. All of those neighborhoods beneath me holding the life of us all. Those streets carrying on with no seeming end in sight, with the dots of the people and the dogs and cats and trash all down below, all moving in the grey day. My memories moved inside of me and I started to cry quietly to myself right there on the train. It wasn’t a sad kind of weeping, and it wasn’t necessarily a happy or joyous sob, it was a slow irrigation, an almost private way of washing my memories out of my brain and from my body. This time home, I felt like the epic battle of having to have answers was not being fought. There felt no need. I was able to just be there. To take it in without the overwhelming overbearing intensity that usually feels pressed upon me. My experiences weren’t being imprinted, they were just happening. And I felt lucky, and humbled, and so quiet. And this was just the beginning really, of my journey back home, back to my family, back to my past.
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