Flat Boring Lands

I lived in Florida. That was the place I ran to at twenty one when I wanted to escape Minnesota. Florida is flat, the coast is flat, sure, but it had the ocean, and the ocean is so far removed from boring that it just cannot in any shape or form fall into the category of “flat boring lands” as Minnesota does. This is all purely based on opinion, of course. It is also based on nostalgia, security, and the heart of what is home and what is not. I loved the beach, I did. When I lived in Florida, the ocean was what kept from feeling lonely and homeless. The ocean was this manifestation of something so far greater than my own being, and just being on the shore of this massive god-like impersonation kept me feeling as if I was most definitely, most infinitely not alone in the universe.

I’ve been to many places, Reader. I’ve lived here and there, and I’ve seen landscapes of all sorts. I try to figure out why Minnesota’s flatlands are so unsatisfactory, but they are. I try to figure out why it’s so empty of anything that should make me feel like I’m standing in the kingdom of God, but it is. Sometimes I feel that this is where God abandoned me, and looking out across the empty plains of long grass and hay fields and bareness is nothing but a bitter reminder that I am indeed, alone. I won’t deny that the vastness of the Minnesota sky, a horizon that stretches from one end of the earth to other, undisturbed by mountains or hills or sloping valleys, has a remarkable resemblance to the vastness, the infinite majesty and manifestation of God that the ocean had offered me so long ago. There are times I watch the sun set here behind the trees in our backyard and I think, “I know this place. I know it.” And for a brief moment of rejuvenated positivity, I feel nostalgic, secure, and home.

It’s the driving that depresses me, Reader. When I have someplace to go it takes a long time to get there. And it doesn’t matter where I go, the path is so painfully, reliably mundane and void of aesthetic scenery. It pours this vat of extinguishing serum of boringness all over my senses, and I’m sucked into watching mini-mall after mini-mall after mini-mall, all looking nearly identical, pass me by on every left and right turn I take. The same chain restaurants and stores are placed almost strategically in exactly the same places as the last town I passed through. Brand new neighborhoods with cookie-cutter houses and no trees are filling up the empty spaces between the mini-malls, and it’s surprising how lost you can get in a land that is so flat the streets are nearly grid-laid in perfect squares. You get lost because every right and left turn you make looks exactly like the last left or right turn you took. It’s not only infuriating, it’s soul sucking. For me it is, at least. There’s something lifeless about a place that is too new to have had any significant history.

Maybe this isn’t so fair to say.

Minnesota isn’t that much younger than the east, and it was founded by great people. Laura Ingles Wilder for example. But that’s just it. If you’ve ever read “Little House on the Prairie”, the hardships of locust plagues and winters that killed their livestock is enough to say, “Why the hell did you stay here!”

Flat – boring - lands. I have a love/hate relationship with them. As I said, sometimes the vastness reminds me of the ocean and I feel comforted by it. But sometimes the vastness reminds me of emptiness, a place that hasn’t survived the same evolutions and the same histories as other places in the country that I have fallen in love with. Even when I’ve been in states that I’m simply passing through, I notice that they have the elements of age that remind me of New York. I see trees, ancient and steadfast, hanging over old stone walls through a neighborhood that has hosted families dating back to the eighteenth century. There are sidewalks, broken ones with upturned squares from the roots of a defiant earth, the sort I used to skip down when my elementary school class would walk to Sugget Park. They may not be the same sidewalks, but it’s nice to know that other places have them too. But not Minnesota. I’m sure in some of the older neighborhoods they do, Reader; please don’t take me too literally. My point is, the “boring” part of the flat lands is entirely derived from the lack of character, the lack of familiar east coast architecture of homes that have survived two hundred years, the familiar stone walls that have been around long enough to suffer decay beneath the moss, the familiar beauty of hills changing from gold, to orange, to ruby red in the autumn, like a ripple of a wave that comes across the mountains from some unseen goddess. I don’t see any of these things here, and it gives me a sense of loss. Even after all these years, the environment, the architecture, the roads, the lefts and rights that seem like nothing but turns in a snow globe, break my heart and make me homesick. I think I’ll always be sick for home, for New York. Think about it, Reader: wouldn’t you? If you’re a Minnesotan, imagine having to move to New York in the middle of high school, and then finding yourself there yet again in your adulthood due to circumstances beyond your control…

Put yourself in my shoes.

This is home to you. If you had to live in New York, you’d hate it. And not because New York is a bad place, but because it’s a bad place for you. You wouldn’t fit in. It wouldn’t be home. You’d miss the things that you love about your own hometown, about Minnesota. No matter how long you live someplace else, you’d miss those flat prairies, you’d miss the water parks and the lakes, you’d miss the people that you had grown up with, the family that was always there for holidays, the church you grew up in, and everything else attached to your identity from the place you know as home. As true as it is that most people can’t wait to leave their hometown for bigger dreams and successes and new adventures, it is always, always true to say that there is no place anywhere in the world that can compare to the place that you knew yourself the best, the place in which you were most connected to your truest identity. There is, Reader, no place like home. And for those of us who’ve had to let go of it, this is to you:

Try to adapt. Don’t let go of who you are, don’t sacrifice or compromise your deepest most honest sense of self. However, change is okay. Attitude is everything. Embracing the new is vital, and bettering the environment that you’ve distasted can change everything for your soul. I am desperately trying to change my distasteful environment by hanging on to the things that matter most about it.

The sky here is beautiful. They sky, from one horizon to the next, one vast ocean of many changing lives from sun up until night fall, is my connection to the greater value of my environment. It is my connection to something that feels like home. It is, I can say, in the same category of grandness and majesty as the eastern hills and the southern ocean shore. The land may be flat and boring, but looking to the heavens isn’t such a bad alternative.

Moving...On.

It’s strange, Reader…

Minnesota has always been synonymous with oppression. Minnesota has always been the place that I don’t belong. The people are too far removed from what I’ve always been familiar with, and it’s left me in a complicated state of loneliness. But that complicated state of loneliness, I have discovered, is nobody’s fault but my own.

Bare with me, Reader. This is not some pubescent sob story of a pathetic little girl with an identity crisis. It is a confession. Well, the beginning to one at least.

Whether by paranoia or by connecting the right dots intuitively, I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter where I’ve ever lived or been, I’ve always had a difficult time coping with people. My mother said to me today, “relationships are hard” and I responded with, “I think that’s why I avoid them…”. And I do. I have my own internal compatibility meter, and when I’m with people I don’t connect with it’s impossible for me to get that meter to swing its needle spuriously. I try to do the “professional” or the “polite” thing by overdriving this meter with forced “how do you do”s and other means of pointless small talk, but the truth of it is, if someone makes me uncomfortable I avoid them at all cost. I am not a pursuer of friendships. Ninety nine per cent of my new, adult life friends have been made because someone made the effort to tear down my wall and get to know me. This brings on a great deal of guilt, realizing that I am one of those people that makes others work very hard to get into my life. However, once you’re in, I’m committed and I’m yours. I’ve got your back. I’ll sacrifice whatever I need to as to keep you, knowing that I owe you. This has always been my pattern: Wall --> Pursuing Stranger Breaks Wall --> I now owe them for all the work it took to get in. And I try to make it worth it. I’ve had some damaging friendships in my past, ones that have made my wall twice as thick, so when true friends come along and work the magic of getting me to trust them, I want to do whatever it takes to keep them.

A relative of mine and I had discussed the possibility of me moving in with her come spring. She lives in New York, not far from where I grew up. The temptation in the moment was overwhelming, and the two of us talked and fantasized about how wonderful it would be for me to move back “home”, planning out our weekend bus trips into The City, imagining ourselves ordering Pudgies Pizza, taking a trip to my hometown and ordering a burger and fries at my old friendly neighborhood’s A&W, all simply in the name of nostalgia, in the name of re-living a simpler time of our youth when life was so much easier. The dream was right there, in front of my face. This was the opportunity to get New York back into my life. This was the avenue that had been lost in a grid of streets of so many wrong turns, the avenue that you turn onto and say, “Hey! I know where I am, now!” I found it. I was homeward bound, for sure.

It wasn’t long after our phone call that the reality of this opportunity began to set itself in. During a weekly coffee “date” with a good friend of mine, I discovered in full that moving back to New York was in truth not what I wanted. To begin with, my reasons for moving were not legit. My friend had also said something to me that made me realize that leaving all of my relationships here, leaving all of the people who had worked so hard to tear down my wall and love me, would be so, so selfish. She didn’t say this outright, but her wisdom was understood. I understood. And she was right. My friends, my true ones anyhow, would have supported any decision for my life that I would make, and I would have no worries losing any of the friendships I’ve made simply because I packed up my bags and moved. But it’s just not the right path for me. Shockingly, returning to New York is not the right path for me. At least, not yet.

Another interesting detail came into play with my decision as well. A friend I had gone to school with back in New York has been living out here in Minnesota for several years. Her and I found each other on a social network not but three years ago, and had finally made definite plans to meet up. It had been fifteen years since we last saw each other…

It was a surreal experience for me, seeing her again. I had a piece of my New York life, one in which I remember very vividly, here in Minnesota. Someone who lived here, in Minnesota, knew the people I grew up with, knows the same streets and buildings and pizza joints that made up our little hometown, and knows, or at least can somewhat remember, the old, old Jessica from so long ago. It was surreal. It was refreshing. Familiarity! She too could relate to the difficulty of a New Yorker trying to adapt to a Midwestern culture, and that was comforting to me.

Now. I understand, Reader, that it was fifteen years ago that my family moved out to Minnesota, and that within several of those years I was living abroad in other cities and states, and I’m perfectly aware that Minnesotans reading this are gritting their teeth and saying, “Get over it already!” But this is what you need to understand: this blog was not designed to keep myself hating Minnesota. This blog was designed to help me, well…. Get over it, like I’m sure you want me to. I’m simply telling the story as the story happens. I’ve only been to four places of my twelve, and there’s still things and people and aspects of Minnesota that I still struggle with, but I’m trying. It takes years to develop a new life, and in my past experiences I haven’t stayed put long enough in one place to lay down those roots. This is the first time in my entire life that I’ve been open to embracing Minnesota as my home, the place I’ve chosen to stay in for at least another few years. The only thing that may or may not take me away from here is my career as a writer, but other than that? This is where Fate has said, “Stay”. So, I’ll stay. But I need to figure out how to put aside my negativity and embrace my life for what it is.

On October 26 of this year I had a dream. I used to be very diligent in writing down my dreams, keeping a dream journal, but haven’t been in the constant habit of it in a very long time. But every once and awhile I’ll have a dream that will shake all of my senses and rattle me down to the very essence of my soul. This one, though seemingly plain and boring to you, Reader, rattled me to the core.

I dreamt of my old home in New York which is usually the setting for most of my dreams, but this one was significant. This is what I wrote in my journal when I woke up:

…The setting overall is hard to explain, but we were definitely in my old New York house. The living room and the kitchen, as they were when I was just a child. Another security in the dream: Home. But I couldn’t have any of it. I couldn’t have him, and I couldn’t have this. There was an attached house to ours and I went through the door and couldn’t get back again… However, something else was happening in the dream. I was handing a manuscript to some literary agent that for some reason was going out of his way to pick it up at my house. Someone had asked, No… it was the agent. He asked me, No! It was someone else… No. It was the agent. He asked me, “Why do you write about your life?”

And I said, “I write about my life because it’s beautiful.” And then I woke up. The dream haunted me all day. The touch from a good man I couldn’t have, the dimly lit, warm comfort of my New York home that I wanted so very much to be real. And then, the actual confession that I believe my life is beautiful and worth writing about. I can’t have it all. Some people can. Most people can’t. But if there’s anything I can have at all, it’s my writing. It’s my beautiful life. And for some reason still unknown to me, I’m meant to share it. So. Wake up, Purpose. No more dreams.

You can believe I dreamt it or not… I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. It seems too fitting and organized, and if I were you I would think I was a fabricating story-teller. But I swear on the graves of all of those I’ve loved and have lost, that I had this dream. It was provoked by things that were said to me by a dear friend of mine. She had just had a baby, and as I was over at her house visiting we were talking about futures. She uplifted me with some kind words, overall telling me that I had opportunities and I shouldn’t keep myself from them. Her words meant so much to me. And then I had the dream. And the dream taught me that I am not stuck. I am not in a bad place. Minnesota has always been synonymous with oppression, but not anymore. I have friends that love me for who I am, who have knocked down my walls and reminded me that home is synonymous with heart, with purpose, with life. My life is here. My life is beautiful after all. And without it, I wouldn’t have this story to share.

So. Is this the end to my blog? Is this my conclusion? She doesn’t hate Minnesota anymore! No. The transition is not yet quite through. I still feel awkward and away from myself living here. I’m still trying to come to terms with all the negative things I associate with my Minnesota life, and those things don’t necessarily have anything to do with Minnesota. It has to do with my family. It has to do with abusive friendships that changed me. It has to do with bullies, poison ivy, racism and a lost love. It has to do with things that could’ve happened anywhere on the map, but happened here. Here, is where I’m always reminded of these things and I have to figure out how to move on from them and become new.

THE ENDING of the Renaissance Era

Okay, Folks. I know this is long overdue, and you’re most likely going to judge me for what I’m about to announce, but here it is: I’m not writing any more about the Renaissance Festival (sort of). It ends here. I make a pretty poor journalist after all!

Why am I ending it?

Because I don’t feel like finishing it.

It was too long ago that I went, and my ADD is saying, “I’M BORED!”. So, I’m going to sum things up super, duper fast and move on from this. And let’s be honest, people: the Renaissance Festival doesn’t necessarily have anything at all to do with Minnesota anyway, especially since all the people in it are from all over the country and do a festival in almost every single state. So… Here’s the ending:

I rode an elephant. Anyone who knows me and my ethics is going to be appalled by this statement. I rode an elephant. I’m not against riding elephants in general, just ones that are trained and forced to walk in a teeny tiny circle hundreds of times each day. I think it’s cruel and a bit of an abomination to nature to use majestic creatures like elephants as slaves to our unforgivable, greed-monger human habits. I rode the elephant because I had a desperate desire to know what their skin felt like. I wanted to know what it felt like to sit on one in comparison to a horse. These are stupid reasons to ride an elephant. I succumbed to the temptation. I shall never do it again, I promise.

So… We shot some arrows for three bucks. We threw some knives at a wall for two bucks. And we watched a pretty good knife throwing show with some very talented entertainers who were, indeed, funny and very, very gifted at what they do. It was quite impressive, and it ended our lovely day rather well. Kudos to entertainers who actually practice and work hard at their craft. Kudos!

And so, The End.
I want to move on now because I have other things I need to write and share.