it was the time of my life in minneapolis. emphasis on the "the" here - the time of my life, the time i've felt alive, was spent in its totality in this vibrant corner of the midwest.
...and milford. sorry evelyn (your container has more stickers than mine(and less spaghetti stains(on a more serious note cafe on the oval cinnamon chip pancakes are surely in the conversation for best of all time)))
nothing really prepares you for that, though, feeling like you're living for the first time at the ripe age of 23 and taking in so much of "life," for lack of a better word. it's a shock to the system, a gentle defibrillator to give you a beat.
every corner had a story to it. "idiosyncrasy" is how i'd describe minneapolis geographically and anthropologically. it's a beauty unlike anything i've really witnessed in person, that tangible sense of nonconformity in delicate dance with community. i'd say minneapolis nails this - even the rich dipshit houses feel like a contribution to the public arts in some sense. it's old school rich, unlike the thielian bullshit or plantation wealth i'm acquainted with. i think of the sterilized patches of suburbia wrested from the raging carolinian overgrowth by comparison - there's a clear difference here.
i've been thinking around it, perhaps now writing around it, in hopes of defining that difference in the negative space. i might attempt to be so uncharacteristically direct in trying to define something here: it feels like a marriage with nature, where the people and the environment sort of bleed into and reflect one another. there isn't a hint of fear, in the people or the environment. it's a comfort. it's alive. the vibrance doesn't blind but embraces. conversely, the fact that south carolina exists as it does is a testament to american hubris. locked doors and lakefront property, barbed wire and roadkill migrating to the sidewalks. you can read your future in the litany of potholes and asphalt quilts that contain you: it's the stuff that makes a psychopath if you don't have a fully stocked medicine cabinet.
i've lived here my entire life in this very numbing and dissociative feeling of hell, and i have a fluctuating sense and evaluation of self. i feel jagged, at times mean, but the next day i might be a doormat. i struggle to define myself. i struggle to see what others see, and that's scary to me. (my glasses are coming in maybe 2wks from now and i'm aware i ought not concern myself to neurosis with the perception of others) i want to be someone, human, and meeting the people in minneapolis was an illuminating experience in this respect. i can't bring myself to my typical envy, it's genuinely a beautiful thought.
you come to realize that as people are fluid, they have a habit of taking the shape of the container. (land of 10,000 lakes? they didn't put it on my keychain so i'm guessing here**) in sandlapper carolina, it feels the safest choice is muddy pothole with a garnish of broken glass, maybe someone's missing license.
**"14,420 bodies of fresh water"... i admire you guys rounding down like that!
i think of the beautiful people who have taken shape there and how lucky i am to have met any of them. i think of sitting on the swings with ashna. i think of wife being able to breathe in a spacious kitchen. i think of these connections that have had the space to sit and breathe!
it's a lovely thing, the amount of lakes in minnesota, each one taking a different shape than the other. if we're belaboring this cheesy metaphor any longer, i'd think about how much of the water collected in those lakes has likely travelled from god knows where. so it's not impossible that the water nested in a carolinian pothole can find its way, water cycle and all that. i might like to revisit this when i have an apartment and sharper metaphors.