I've Got It All Backwards

Living in the city and working in the country is disorienting. It's all backwards. You're supposed to live in the country and work in the city, right? Driving to work in the dredge of slow traffic as you all join in the depressed comradery expressed by that barely-perceptible head nod. The type with the distinct difference between the nod that starts low and goes high, and the one that starts high and goes low. The former seems to say, "Hey. Welcome to the group. Nice to see you," but the high to low simply suggests "This sucks."

It's all high to low.

But I'm sailing past all of this comradery at 75mph in the opposite direction. It's no less depressing, though, and there's nobody with which to share the depression through that high to low nod of the head. I just get to be equally depressed at a higher rate of speed.

So woe is me; Stuck at a job in the country doing everything I can to make each local fully aware that not only do I not want to be spending nine hours a day in this town, but also that I have more refined tastes from living in the bigger, faster city.

Then I went to Stacy's.

Not that it was my choice, but in this job you go to lunch where everybody else goes, or you spend an hour alone. Today it was decided to patronize the gem of the cheap run-down establishments, Stacy's Buffet.

The building itself looks like a mixture of modular houses all parked in just the right position to provide shelter for a common feeding trough capable of providing enough grease for all of Southeast Ohio. The sign out front is nothing more than a banner with the restaurant's namesake tied to the original sign of whatever unlucky establishment last found itself unable to pay the bills. There's a covered porch stretching across the entire length of the building just like you'd see at Cracker Barrel, only this one isn't for decoration. It just is. In fact, nothing at Stacy's is for decoration. It's just stuff sitting where stuff ended up when somebody who last moved it decided to stop moving the it. There it sits. The tables and chairs are a collection of the area's not-so finest tables and chairs, yet if you look close enough long enough, you can find two that match.

The line to get into the buffet isn't long, but it does exist; solely at the oblivity of the long-since retired lady working the cash register.
One product.
One price.
$5.99 plus tax.
$6.41.
...All day long.

Nothing here moved fast, and this lady was no exception. I had exactly one hour to pay, eat, get back to my car, drive back to work, and slide in behind my desk. Time was of the essence.

The food was exactly as I expected. Delicious. I'm no connoisseur of food, and this place was right in line with my taste. Nothing special, just good home cooking. Yet as good as the food was, it didn't suprise me. What did suprise me were the people.

They were every where. Large groups of teenagers, older couples, white, black, Asian, all sharing tables. Here is where the town of Wilmington, Ohio eats. The entire town.

There was constant conversation loud enough to mask the clinking of plates and translucent plastic glasses, but quiet enough to engage in your own conversation. The place had a pulse, like the cafeteria in high school where friends took the only time they had to all be together to catch up on the days activities, and to refuel both physically and socially before seperating again for an afternoon of hard work. Everything was slower here, as if Stacy herself had discovered the secret of slowing down time to enjoy as much as you could, rather than my prison of working as hard as you could within the constraints of the clock.

There is nothing you can do. When you walk underneath the porch that just is, and stand in the line in front of the long-since retired lady repeating $6.41, $6.41, you've stepped out of time. It doesn't stop, it just doesn't matter.

Community thrived here, and it felt authentic to be a part of it. What mattered wasn't me, it wasn't my job, nor was it the other people. What mattered here were the relationships. Nobody was alone. This was a community at its foundation.

As I turned away from the buffet with my heaping plate of food, I got my first of the many head nods I would receive in that hour.

They all went low to high. Welcome.

As I stepped back into time, and worked my way back to my desk, I saw my to-do list filled with deadlines and work-driven priorities. And I realized...

I've Got It All Backwards.

I Love New York

New York.
It really is unlike any other city in the U.S. I've gotten to know the city much better over the past few years. Its a real city where people come to live and work and be around other people. Don't get me wrong; I don't want to live here, but its nice to be a part of the cultural capital of our Country, even if just for a little while.

I'd seen New York several times before, but in February 2002 I had the opportunity to spend some time feeling the city. I'd just been hired to start the career I'd dreamed of since I was six, and I wanted to make my pilgrimage to New York before I made the jarring change between college and the "real world." My grandfather had just died, and taking a trip with my family to the city he loved to visit seemed to put a symbolic end to the old, and a prelude to my new life and career to come. Over the next few months, I visited New York several times to perfect the plans I had to bring my fiance` and propose to her there. Only a month later, I could barely make out the blurry image of "the lady" through my tears as my future wife and I sailed by her with me on one knee.

On countless beautiful winter mornings, I would fly down the East River on my approach to Laguardia Airport, and on countless winter evenings I would sit in my New York hotel room thanking God for the ability to safely bring the plane to a stop in what New Yorkers always seemed to call "the worst winter storm of the year." I've spent time in parts of the city I never expected to step foot in, and not only learned the ways of the culture there, but learned to to live and fit in with the culture.

New York has, in a weird way, become the benchmark for my life. It seems that during every major change in my life over the past five years, I found myself in New York. The city itself is irrelevant, of course, but my connection with it and the bone-jarring changes in my life has made it a place of spiritual clarity where I can most easily separate myself from my life and look at if from a distance. Now, as much as ever, I feel the change. The uncertainty of a career change, and leaving the house where my wife and I started our lives together is intimidating. More than anything, I'm afraid I'm going to regret my decision. I know its all relative, and I try to deal in absolutes as much as possible, but nothing scares me more than knowing I made a decision that made our lives worse.

But then I come to New York. I feel the gravity of every other important event that's happened in my life; I feel the uncertainty I had while sitting in the same city; and I feel God talking through my experience. It really is like being able to separate myself from time, and look across all of it at once: the past, and the future, and everything is OK. And while sitting on that spiritual plateau, I feel God lean over and whisper, "See?"

And I do see.

I see Him sitting right next to me. I see my life as uncompleted, but free of regret as long as I keep myself sitting right next to Him on that plateau. I see joy, and I see pain, but I see all of that while sitting next to Him.

And so my decision has been made. I may explain it in other posts, but it is quite obvious that this change was brought about by God. It is also quite obvious that it will not necessarily be a good change, but I'm excited to do what God has asked me to do, even if it means hardship.

New York is a dirty city. It has horrible traffic, is ridiculously expensive, has some of the rudest people, and is not the safest place to be.
New York is where I visit God.

I Love New York.