i have officially made my move to denton. and honey, i aint in dallas anymore.
i didn't think it would be that different, but now i realize i was telling myself this to pad the change. to insulate my anxieties. and it's not that i do or don't like it--i can't conjure a claim for a good couple of months. it's just that i feel like i'm in oklahoma again. the pace is so tortuga...so caracoles.
ray came to see and we walked around, walked through campus, walked the town square. this took twenty minutes. the downtown square reminds me so much of my hometown--an ancient drugstore even sits on the northeast corner and i bet they sell nylons for a quarter. there's a soda shop--yes! a soda shop!--that makes homeade ice cream (no complaints there). and then there's a hamburger joint that makes 'em real: grilled onions, pickles, bleeding meat. i asked the waitress if they do a veggie version and she said, 'yeah. i could leave the patty off and just give you the fixins.' and there were plenty of elderly gents walking into ruby's diner. they tipped thier hats and winked real polite like and asked me if i had an older sister. and it made me feel pretty and cozy and sweet.
and then it hit me: dear god! i'm in enid! this place looks just like it, it feels just like it, and i can't iron out my feelings to figure out if i even care. i mean, if you peel back my cosmopolitan layers--the make-up application for the grocery store visit, the $160 pair of fresh-out-of-LA jeans, the rushing cell phone walk and talk while i wait for my dog to poop, the name dropping at hip and trendy clubs to avoid paying cover--i'm just a simple girl from middle america.
have i mentioned one of my first childhood memories? it includes me standing on the ledge of our front porch wearing nothing but a pair of panties around the age of 4. i'm beating a stick on the side of the house that might be taller than me and singing a jesus tune i learned in church the previous week. i'm slurping a sippy cup of cherry flavored kool-aid and saying hello to the mailman who is walking up the porch steps to drop off some bills marked FINAL NOTICE. and i feel deliriously happy.
so is this the real me? the simple jude from yesteryear's past?
maybe i'll do it, go for it all the way. i'll trade in my starbuck's to-go mug for a sippy cup of kool-aid and call it coming full circle. cause i can throw a stone and hit oklahoma city.
all this time i thought i was too good for this shit. too good for cops named bobby and decent coversations with neighbors and fellow citizens. who knows, maybe i'll even bust out a casserole recipe and welcome the next new person who hits ole hickory street. in the meantime, i'm gonna do a little research on needlepoint--this way i'll have something to discuss with the old timers at ruby's. they make damn good egg sandwiches and a girl like me deserves a hook-up, i don't care where i'm at. just the acknowlegement will do.
There's comfort in knowing that places like that will always stay the same. And I don't know about you, but cherry kool-aid was always "red." Yes its a color and no, technically its not a flavor, but it was always "Grape, Orange, or Red?"
Posted by: jake | January 12, 2006 at 10:42 PM