Word After Word

East Coast

November 07th, 2007 | Category: Diary Like, Writing

I just got back from the East Coast. Philly.

 

I love the East Coast. People are generally glad to be from there. They feel as though they are in the Advanced section of Geography and you, coming from the Mid, are just starting out, enrolled in a much, much simpler section.

 

Also on the East Coast, people like language and shortcuts (nicknames are their favorite thing of all combining both language and a short cut.)  They also like hard to pronounce things. Like Schuykill. (I still can’t say it or spell it. I thought it was pronounced “shy kill.”)

 

While they mock you for mispronouncing their stuff, they’re happy to have you move to their towns. They’re fine with chaos on the East Coast.

 

In the

Midwest, we worship clarity. We are always apologizing. If anything is remotely unclear ever, we are sorry.  We fix it. We feel as though we are supposed to feel badly about it, being from the

Midwest, the purported “easy section.” Secretly, we do not feel bad at all, we feel calm stolid pride. We do not want anyone from the East Coast or maybe anywhere else moving to our towns. You won’t fit in and we’ll worry constantly about you. We are not fine with chaos. The

Midwest is, among other things, neat and picked up.

 

The East Coast people are secretly glad and publicly glad they are from there, and generally, they are irritated about just about everything else. They are not divided against themselves. They aren’t working against themselves so they are free to direct all that energy out into the world. They’re the mind-bending mix of happy-go-lucky and superbly intense. Oh, I love that combination. It’s like paella. It’s like flamenco. It’s like James Joyce. It’s like Sonic Youth. It’s like Abigail Thomas.  They’re refreshing to be around. They’re intense.

 

I grew up in Florida, on the East Coast, as far East as you can get—we lived sometimes right on the beach—but it’s not the same as the North East. The south east is the north east washed out, bleached, hung outside to dry and then forgotten about….it’s well lit and pastel at once; stoned + caffeinated. Dude, I had to totally move. 

To the

Midwest. The Mid. (Our nicknames are goofy, cute.) Short cuts here are stupid. We have direct routes, diligently numbered; we’re on the grid, keeping reasonable hours, our artists raise organic chickens and have sales. Recently we got a cab company. His name is Red. That’s a nickname.

 

On my trip to the East Coast everyone who drove me around had a map on a Blackberry or a GPS that talked out loud and as it directed them turn here, do this, turn now, they said, always “I’m not believing you. I think you’re wrong. I love you, little guy, but you’re wrong on this one.”

 

And, to a person, they went their own way anyway.

 

 

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