day too

Strange place in which I find myself.

I’ve loved meeting you all, with your plummy, posh voices and your common slurring, nasal lisps. Your crisp consonants and unintelligible vowels. I feel like I’ve traveled the world over just zipping past your state, your city, your province, your borough. For the most part, I have had the time of my life, jouncing past in rattling coaches and jarring cabs. I look over your shoulders and peer at your papers, and I wonder… who are you, really?

Who are you, Midwesterners, with your flat vowels and your vehement discussions on Page 1 about whether or not Anne Lamont should be able to speak at your university because she talks about suicide — which is anti-Catholic? Who are you, fast-talking Easterners, who have been so unexpectedly kind, even as you nearly run me down in the pedestrian lane? Who are you, atheist Gaels, whose glorious churches are wedged in at nearly every corner, but which echo emptily with the 70 – 80 year old crowd. Who are you all? And what do you see when you look at me?

I feel like a stranger more often than not. Everyone here seems so …edgy. Harsh makeup and dyed hair, false lashes and glitter-glam clothing. Will I have a sophistication which matches my flat? Will I need to escape to the country in order to retain my sanity?

It feels like there is much to do against the winter. We have to secure the light and warmth and homey aspects needed to keep the roar of alienation at bay. Today I feel adrift… It’s not so much that I miss home, or want to be back in the heat and sunshine or that I need the family and their concerns pressing ’round. It’s just that without all of that, who am I? Who am I now?

I must need more sleep. More sleep, and then I can do this…

I hope. God keep us.

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