The Reader Travels

I once compared Anne Tyler to John Waters just because they’re both from Baltimore. I want to claim these two among the great southern US writers, who so beautifully capture a culture trying to hide its deepset hairline fractures. The real difference is that Tyler portrays characters who are not-quite-right, while Waters creates those that are just-plain-wrong.

Of course in the US, the north looks down upon the south, and it’s not just because of the way the maps are drawn. But then, British movies still portray the US as some kind of trashy nouveau riche country with no history to back up its big mouth. It just reminds us that we live with these imaginary hierarchies all the time. It somehow makes people feel better about themselves to observe and judge from afar.

An acquaintance of mine once confided that she had been hospitalized for anorexia. Even in this sad mental hospital world of eating disorders, the anorexics looked down on the bulemics. It’s the ones who don’t eat at all that are masters of real control. The ones who scarf and barf are scraping the barrel.

I recently read Tyler’s Breathing Lessons, which takes us on a road trip from Baltimore to southern Pennsylvania and back, a day trip traversing many mishaps, flashbacks and detours. The main character is deeply delusional, but I realize it’s the type of delusion a person can have south or north, new world or old, skinny or skinnier.

After working a twenty hour weekend, I can’t seem to get my priorities straight. Do I write a blog entry to keep up my weekly goal (yes, obviously)? Do I exercise to keep from getting stressed and flabby? Do I wash the laundry that’s piled up over the last two weeks? Do I pay my bills? Or do I wash my hair so I don’t have to go back to work tomorrow in shame and disgust?

And Dan just reminded me I’ve forgotten to watch my fantasy football team and that despite the fact that I just want to go have a nice dinner and a glass of red wine, the Cowboys game is kicking off in less than an hour. Sure glad I brought home the leftover pizza from lunch, or else I’d have really been screwed.

 Peace out.

Every week day I drive east in the morning, heading for the gold towers along Dallas’s Central Expressway. I park my car in the garage and head for the elevators. Now, I don’t see a lot of road rage or impatience on my drive to the office. It’s a nice three-lane road, the lights fairly well timed, a lake and some trees along the way. It’s all relatively serene for rush hour driving.

But in the elevators there is evidence of the impatience to get in, get to work, get out, get home. What evidence, you ask? Well, it’s an old building, a bit of a landmark in Dallas, and the elevators are well worn.  You’ll see some southern hospitality as people do hold the doors for each other, and gentlemen often let the ladies get on and off first (though I’m not sure what that’s all about).

But note the Close Door button. All of the buttons have a clear plastic window covering them, all except Close Door, whose plastic cover was cracked and smashed through years ago, the letters rubbed off by thousands of oily thumbs and index fingers frantically pressing the button to get going already. I haven’t checked those for the higher levels, but all four elevators going to floors one through ten of the south tower suffer from this same symptom.

Now, it could be that the close door function doesn’t really work. These elevators are going to close their doors when they darn well please. Or, it could be that people are just impatient; they want to get where they’re going and not be held up by this slow machine that they can’t control.

Or it could simply be another symptom of the discomfort people feel when they’re in elevators.  Being in a lift with other folks has always been a strange social phenomenon. We avoid eye contact and stare at the door, waiting for it to open and let us off. There’s a risk of claustrophobia or entrapment, and the sooner we get it over with the better. For those people who are most uncomfortable with the forced social situation, they may just be pressing the button to give themselves something to do.

Rumor has it, they’re installing new elevators in the building. This tiny evidence will be gone, this fossil remnant of our evolution to a society that expects nothing less than instant gratification.

As Dorothy was traveling along the yellow brick road, she was passing straight through Elphaba’s life, challenging the green one’s very belief system by introducing something strange and new into her world. Travelers are not always welcome, and it’s not just about territorialism. People are often comforted by sameness, and afraid of things that fall outside of their world view.

Wicked is not the only story about the people beyond the road who are not altogether welcoming to the strangers who encroach on their sovereignty. Another that comes to mind is James Dickey’s Deliverance. These city men travel first a road and then a river, through territory untouched by city folk. By traveling here and bringing their city notions, they are a threat that must be handled with extreme prejudice.

One slightly less ominous journey occurs in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, with a drag queen show that travels from the safety of the big city in Australia, across the unforgiving outback. In the end, they realize that city is a place that protects the travelers as much as the desert protects the people who live beyond that road. But the challenges along the way, those barriers broken, make the lives richer for it.