Friends,
Here in Pittsburgh, we have something called "spring." Apparently, it is a time when things stop being so cold and ugly and gray and slushy, like a song by Radiohead; instead, things turn cheery and upbeat and colorful, like a song by Menudo. Plus, I hear this "spring" is coming soon, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.
(A sidenote: Alli and I just got done watching that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Man, is that not, like, the best show in the whole eff'n world? I mean--we're sitting there, in the dark of our bedroom, and families are getting houses and hard wood floors and quilts with pictures of passed-on relatives, and I'm cryinig my eyes out, Alli and I are holding on to each other, our faces are wet and we're shivering, in awe, saying, "Oh God! Oh God, thank you! Thank you for giving us this pause, for this time to reflect on charity!" and I'm pleased with the world as it is, in full understanding of what life is about; I am humbled, and vulnerable, and I feel my chest fill with all kinds of mystery, and I am full of the love and virtue that decades of churching should have nurtured. I feel now like I'm the dang Good Samaritan, like I'm some kind of hospital or homeless shelter. And then I realize that I'm watching TV. Isn't that weird? Isn't that a strange sensation? I mean, it's been about twenty minutes since the show has ended, and I still feel like I need to finish a good cry. Pretty much, the point of this paragraph is to say this: Living in America in this age of Reality TV makes my soul very very confused. I don't know if I should feel guilty about my emoitions over this TV show. I feel like I have saved three babies in a well, and like I need a shower.)
So, spring is upon us. And by "us," I mean "not you out in California," but "all of us out here where there are real seasons." And we are going to take full advantage: we're becoming gardeners. There are some planter thing-a-ma-bobs in the front of our house, and there is some dirt in em, and leaves, and some stuff that grows up out of the dirt too. They are called plants, but the plants that are in there now are ugly looking, so we're gonna tackle em, take em out, and put new ones in there, to make it look pretty and colorful and splendid. We're gonna buy gloves and little shovels and watering cans, and we're gonna subscribe to Gardening Today and we're gonna make friends with Dave and Richard, the couple across the street who are in their front yard every dang Saturday, doing their gardening thing. They rake, they dig, they mow their lawn and pull weeds out of the dirt; and, my goodness, their yard is beautiful. And you should see them bicker at each other. Like a couple of bitches.
There are already some tulips growing up out of the grass in the front, which Alli loves to see. She is in love with tulips. I love that she love tulips so much. We're gonna try to grow up some more tulips so Alli will be in a good mood every time she sees them.
Upon exploring Pittsburgh, we have found a park called Highland Park here in the city; it is on a hill (making sense out of that name, Highland Park), and the view from up there is spectacular: you can see one of the rivers to the north, and all kinds of trees are sprinkled down the hill on that side; you can see all the squirrels running around, and there is nice architecture here and there to marvel at, stairs, statues, monuments to Pittsburgh history, and so on. On a sunny day, there is nothing like a trip to Highland Park. Plus, it is the home of the city's reservoir. Now, Alli and I have come to like taking walks around this reservoir, which is pretty enough in itself. It is no Pacific Ocean, mind you, but it is water, and there aren't many things around here like that. But, even though we find that we like it up there, walking up the hill and then around the revervoir and then down the hill to the coffee shop for a sit down and a crossed-leg talk about how we're doing, we notice this about ourselves: we go to the _reservoir_. It's something we do; it's something we _actually_ do. One of us, on a Saturday morning, will say, "Hey, hon, you wanna go take a walk up at the reservoir?" And, when we think about it, it repulses us. We've never had to say that word before. Reservoir. Reservoir. Reservoir. In all honesty, I don't even know how to pronounce it right. Is it "Rezz-v-wire" or "Rezz-v-wore" or "Rezzer-v-wire" or what? It's starting to feel little white-trashy, to keep getting excited about a trip around the reservoir, because taking a walk around the reservoir is something like shopping at the JC Penny Discount Outlet. It's just not quite, you know...it's not the IT thing. So, we're trying to think up new names for it, like "Hey, you wanna head out to the beach?" or "Hey, hon, how about a walk around the lake?" just so we don't feel so ashamed of it, but we're pretty sure that it's useless. It's almost as if, pretty soon, if we keep it up, we might as well buy a wading pool and call it the hot tub; or start referring to our dogs as "the kids." --But, anyway, for now, if you wonder what we like to do on Saturdays in the mid-to-late mornings, we like to take the boat out for a spin around the harbor.
As for our lives, for real: Alli and I are doing pretty well. I have never felt so much hope about actually trying out this "becoming a writer" thing that I've had in my mind for so many years; and Alli seems to be thriving, at work, and among the people here whom we've grown to care about. There are things about Pittsburgh that we really love, and other things that we know we just have to wait out. We still miss home very much. The other day, I rode the bus with someone who had spent a weekend once in Manhattan Beach, and I found myself practically slobbering all over him, trying to tell him how I grew up there, how I grew up surfing in California, how I loved to be on the beach in California, and then I remembered: I live in Pennsylvania. I have Pennsylvania license plates. My zip code starts with a 1. Eww. And I felt strange, and far away. Alli and I feel like this very often, but we're making the best of it out here. Sometimes it hits us that we're the young couple making memories, that in a few years we'll picture our first house in Pittsburgh, or we'll think about Pittsburgh fondly, and we'll probably be far far away from here when we do. We consider that, once we leave this city, we'll probably never return, and when we imagine that, we get a feeling like "missing" Pittsburgh already, which makes us understand that we really do like it here--pretty much.
We want to say that we miss you, and that we love you.
Carlos
Here in Pittsburgh, we have something called "spring." Apparently, it is a time when things stop being so cold and ugly and gray and slushy, like a song by Radiohead; instead, things turn cheery and upbeat and colorful, like a song by Menudo. Plus, I hear this "spring" is coming soon, so we have that going for us. Which is nice.
(A sidenote: Alli and I just got done watching that Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Man, is that not, like, the best show in the whole eff'n world? I mean--we're sitting there, in the dark of our bedroom, and families are getting houses and hard wood floors and quilts with pictures of passed-on relatives, and I'm cryinig my eyes out, Alli and I are holding on to each other, our faces are wet and we're shivering, in awe, saying, "Oh God! Oh God, thank you! Thank you for giving us this pause, for this time to reflect on charity!" and I'm pleased with the world as it is, in full understanding of what life is about; I am humbled, and vulnerable, and I feel my chest fill with all kinds of mystery, and I am full of the love and virtue that decades of churching should have nurtured. I feel now like I'm the dang Good Samaritan, like I'm some kind of hospital or homeless shelter. And then I realize that I'm watching TV. Isn't that weird? Isn't that a strange sensation? I mean, it's been about twenty minutes since the show has ended, and I still feel like I need to finish a good cry. Pretty much, the point of this paragraph is to say this: Living in America in this age of Reality TV makes my soul very very confused. I don't know if I should feel guilty about my emoitions over this TV show. I feel like I have saved three babies in a well, and like I need a shower.)
So, spring is upon us. And by "us," I mean "not you out in California," but "all of us out here where there are real seasons." And we are going to take full advantage: we're becoming gardeners. There are some planter thing-a-ma-bobs in the front of our house, and there is some dirt in em, and leaves, and some stuff that grows up out of the dirt too. They are called plants, but the plants that are in there now are ugly looking, so we're gonna tackle em, take em out, and put new ones in there, to make it look pretty and colorful and splendid. We're gonna buy gloves and little shovels and watering cans, and we're gonna subscribe to Gardening Today and we're gonna make friends with Dave and Richard, the couple across the street who are in their front yard every dang Saturday, doing their gardening thing. They rake, they dig, they mow their lawn and pull weeds out of the dirt; and, my goodness, their yard is beautiful. And you should see them bicker at each other. Like a couple of bitches.
There are already some tulips growing up out of the grass in the front, which Alli loves to see. She is in love with tulips. I love that she love tulips so much. We're gonna try to grow up some more tulips so Alli will be in a good mood every time she sees them.
Upon exploring Pittsburgh, we have found a park called Highland Park here in the city; it is on a hill (making sense out of that name, Highland Park), and the view from up there is spectacular: you can see one of the rivers to the north, and all kinds of trees are sprinkled down the hill on that side; you can see all the squirrels running around, and there is nice architecture here and there to marvel at, stairs, statues, monuments to Pittsburgh history, and so on. On a sunny day, there is nothing like a trip to Highland Park. Plus, it is the home of the city's reservoir. Now, Alli and I have come to like taking walks around this reservoir, which is pretty enough in itself. It is no Pacific Ocean, mind you, but it is water, and there aren't many things around here like that. But, even though we find that we like it up there, walking up the hill and then around the revervoir and then down the hill to the coffee shop for a sit down and a crossed-leg talk about how we're doing, we notice this about ourselves: we go to the _reservoir_. It's something we do; it's something we _actually_ do. One of us, on a Saturday morning, will say, "Hey, hon, you wanna go take a walk up at the reservoir?" And, when we think about it, it repulses us. We've never had to say that word before. Reservoir. Reservoir. Reservoir. In all honesty, I don't even know how to pronounce it right. Is it "Rezz-v-wire" or "Rezz-v-wore" or "Rezzer-v-wire" or what? It's starting to feel little white-trashy, to keep getting excited about a trip around the reservoir, because taking a walk around the reservoir is something like shopping at the JC Penny Discount Outlet. It's just not quite, you know...it's not the IT thing. So, we're trying to think up new names for it, like "Hey, you wanna head out to the beach?" or "Hey, hon, how about a walk around the lake?" just so we don't feel so ashamed of it, but we're pretty sure that it's useless. It's almost as if, pretty soon, if we keep it up, we might as well buy a wading pool and call it the hot tub; or start referring to our dogs as "the kids." --But, anyway, for now, if you wonder what we like to do on Saturdays in the mid-to-late mornings, we like to take the boat out for a spin around the harbor.
As for our lives, for real: Alli and I are doing pretty well. I have never felt so much hope about actually trying out this "becoming a writer" thing that I've had in my mind for so many years; and Alli seems to be thriving, at work, and among the people here whom we've grown to care about. There are things about Pittsburgh that we really love, and other things that we know we just have to wait out. We still miss home very much. The other day, I rode the bus with someone who had spent a weekend once in Manhattan Beach, and I found myself practically slobbering all over him, trying to tell him how I grew up there, how I grew up surfing in California, how I loved to be on the beach in California, and then I remembered: I live in Pennsylvania. I have Pennsylvania license plates. My zip code starts with a 1. Eww. And I felt strange, and far away. Alli and I feel like this very often, but we're making the best of it out here. Sometimes it hits us that we're the young couple making memories, that in a few years we'll picture our first house in Pittsburgh, or we'll think about Pittsburgh fondly, and we'll probably be far far away from here when we do. We consider that, once we leave this city, we'll probably never return, and when we imagine that, we get a feeling like "missing" Pittsburgh already, which makes us understand that we really do like it here--pretty much.
We want to say that we miss you, and that we love you.
Carlos
posted by Carlos Antonio Delgado at 9:14 PM
1 Comments:
You are so sweet. Have you checked out the cemeteries yet? Those seem to be Pittsburgh's seas. I would recommend the Calvary Cemetery in Greenfield; not so much a cemetery as a necropolis: endless, hilly and windblown, heartbreaking in the specificity of its graves, in sight of the Monongahela, and nearly silent.
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