Manhattan, Birmingham. Manhattan, Atlanta. Manhattan, Pensacola. I’ve flown between my two worlds—North and South—too many times this summer. I forget why I go from one city to the next…why I choose one over the other…why I leave my sister, newborn niece, mother and everyone else for an empty apartment in SoHo…why I set aside my martinis at the Four Seasons for fried food and flat beer…why I kiss Southern Boy good-bye and fly back to a city filled with egos and pretention and frenetic brilliance. I’m happy everywhere and nowhere.
Why did he and I have to meet while we’re still so young? This isn’t the path I planned. Our careers are supposed to be fixed, successful, lucrative and we should be in our thirties with many more relationships under our belt. We should want the same things. Instead, we’re both 25 and very green and undecided about everything except for love.
Ambition…
Indifference…
Craving…
Contentment…
Will we ever find our place?
I come back from my trips down South feeling more grounded and real. In a way, I feel cleaner. Greed and flash are in the past, I tell myself. But, then, I have box seats at the US Open, silk skirts brushing past me in the Bryant Park tents, dates that try to kiss me during the sticky, midnight cab rides downtown.
The poison—and the beauty—of New York City is choice. La Guardia will fly me anywhere. 9th Avenue restaurants will feed me anything. Madison Avenue will sell me the world. The people in the bars and lounges and coffee shops will let me be any woman I want to be. But, has the time come for me to be one person, with one man, with one grand life plan?
I am a Southerner in the City, an aging debutante, a small town girl cursed with big city aspirations. My grandfather says that I’m at the cusp of feminine failure—I’m as old as a bottle of prime Tennessee whiskey (aged 25 years) and still single. I need to “get on home” and find a nice Southern boy—a doctor, maybe an insurance salesman. At this, I dig in my heels and set out to date every inappropriate man in Manhattan…
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Monday, September 12, 2005
Money Laundering and Me
A mere three days north of the Mason-Dixon and I receive a phone call from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. A man that had once pursued me—namely inviting me to Madonna’s Christmas party—is now being investigated by the state as well as the Federal Government. He’s being charged with fraud and money laundering. They confiscated his telephone and computer records and found my name. I’m to testify against him—or something along those lines. It’s all very “Law & Order” and I feel like a duped Bridget Jones.
I’ll keep y’all posted…
I’ll keep y’all posted…
Sunday, September 11, 2005
Thursday, September 8, 2005
Southern Anniversary
Very sorry for the blog hiatus. I had family members and meals and Southern Boy to tend to back down South. But, I’m back in the city, sitting at my usual perch (the kitchen table), looking out at the pretty cornices of West Broadway, ready to write.
Two months ago… I had never felt the warm weight of your body a top mine… You didn’t blush and laugh quite as often… My cheeks didn’t burn from hours of kissing… I didn’t know that there was someone out there to make me dinner, hold my hand, bless the food and our friendship… You couldn’t begin to spell ‘principessa’… I had never considered a white jacket, black piping to be erotic…Neither of us had smiled quite as much… I didn’t close my eyes and whisper little sentences to someone above, thanking him for surprises and fate and men with sweet souls…
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Love(ly) Letter
This is a love letter never sent...
Thank God. He was 22 years older than I and completely inappropriate--he never would have fit in down on the farm. Somehow, though, it's always the inappropriate ones that capture your heart...
E,
So, it’s your birthday… no, wait, it’s our birthday. What do we do? Oh, E, what do we do? We have books unwritten, articles unfinished, very important conversations that haven’t been dissected or transcribed and all of those editors and agents on our tails. The prose and the witty, clipped sentences are, you know, always there—metaphors, onomatopoeia, dialogue and all that. It’s just that when the tips touch the keys and the screen is white and vast and empty they don’t come out as easily as they used to.
No matter.
The 6th is for us. We eat cake and drink champagne and live on sweetness and memories for a day. Maybe longer. I smile and look up at the Spanish blue skies and pull your wool winter coat a little closer to your cold little body and remind you to think of the good bits because that’s all you can do on a day like this in a city like New York.
We take a walk—Bedford, Charles, West 10th and all the rest of the nice ones— and don’t think to complain about anything. Ladders and fire-escapes on the buildings’ facades cross and run together like honeysuckle vines on a garden trellis. With you next to me and me next to you and a brisk wind off the Hudson and the smell of warm butter and eggs from the corner bakery, everything is just so. We’re content and, for once, quiet.
Quietly we dream.
Your eyes shift from me to the golden-hued windows of the brownstones and to the earnest shadows of cooks and nannies that stand over sinks and wipe the noses of precious, young children. Mother is upstairs sliding lacquered bangles onto her thin, tanned wrists. Daddy will eventually come home to a roasted piece of meat, Scotch and a family that smells of lilac and vanilla. A doll’s house for millionaires. We both think, “one day, one day” and only hope that part of the dream will come true.
The daylight hours have been nice—really, the walk couldn’t have been any lovelier nor our reveries—so we turn around before anything changes. Our minds have captured the right bits of naked, December tree limb, proud front stoops garlanded with pine, our birthday cake adorned with a perfect, red poinsettia. Everything isn’t just so; everything is extraordinary.
Love,
Belle
Thank God. He was 22 years older than I and completely inappropriate--he never would have fit in down on the farm. Somehow, though, it's always the inappropriate ones that capture your heart...
E,
So, it’s your birthday… no, wait, it’s our birthday. What do we do? Oh, E, what do we do? We have books unwritten, articles unfinished, very important conversations that haven’t been dissected or transcribed and all of those editors and agents on our tails. The prose and the witty, clipped sentences are, you know, always there—metaphors, onomatopoeia, dialogue and all that. It’s just that when the tips touch the keys and the screen is white and vast and empty they don’t come out as easily as they used to.
No matter.
The 6th is for us. We eat cake and drink champagne and live on sweetness and memories for a day. Maybe longer. I smile and look up at the Spanish blue skies and pull your wool winter coat a little closer to your cold little body and remind you to think of the good bits because that’s all you can do on a day like this in a city like New York.
We take a walk—Bedford, Charles, West 10th and all the rest of the nice ones— and don’t think to complain about anything. Ladders and fire-escapes on the buildings’ facades cross and run together like honeysuckle vines on a garden trellis. With you next to me and me next to you and a brisk wind off the Hudson and the smell of warm butter and eggs from the corner bakery, everything is just so. We’re content and, for once, quiet.
Quietly we dream.
Your eyes shift from me to the golden-hued windows of the brownstones and to the earnest shadows of cooks and nannies that stand over sinks and wipe the noses of precious, young children. Mother is upstairs sliding lacquered bangles onto her thin, tanned wrists. Daddy will eventually come home to a roasted piece of meat, Scotch and a family that smells of lilac and vanilla. A doll’s house for millionaires. We both think, “one day, one day” and only hope that part of the dream will come true.
The daylight hours have been nice—really, the walk couldn’t have been any lovelier nor our reveries—so we turn around before anything changes. Our minds have captured the right bits of naked, December tree limb, proud front stoops garlanded with pine, our birthday cake adorned with a perfect, red poinsettia. Everything isn’t just so; everything is extraordinary.
E, it’s your day and my day and our hearts and mouths are anxious to see what comes with the dark hours so I will the days to turn into New York City night, for the water towers to fade into Houston’s twilight sky, for the wine we drink to be like rubies and someone’s prose little pieces of heaven. Something, someone has to entertain all those important thoughts in your head.
Love,
Belle
Monday, August 29, 2005
Feast
Southern Boy has decided to cook for my entire family Labor Day weekend. No weaner roast here, y'all...
Sunday Feast w. Belle
Gulf Fried Oysters with Spicy Remoulade
Butterbean and Country Ham Crostini
Shrimp and Avocado Salad
Mango, Cilantro, Shaved Red Onion, and Chili Oil
Crispy Veal Sweetbreads
Pink-eyed Peas, Okra, Tomato and Ham Hock Broth
Roasted Gulf Grouper
Zucchini Ribbons and Sauce Vierge
Braised Duck Leg
Foie Gras and Muscadine Stuffing with Creamed Corn and Turnip Greens
Three Berry Galette
Freud and the Food Network
“What do women want?” Charlie asks me on the phone through a mouthful of shrimp Po-boy.
His question is a cliché, so why do I feel compelled to answer him? It must be his tone—it’s equal parts sweetness, anxiety and curiosity. (Then again, maybe it’s his charming Birmingham accent—when he talks it’s all vowels and minted iced tea). The boy needs something.
I’m a little disappointed that I respond with such standard fare as, “We want a lot of things—everything, really. Love, friendship, intelligent conversation, café au lait and brioche in bed, diamonds on every major federal holiday and anniversary…”
I hang up.
I drool over Adrien Grenier in “Entourage.”
I have the one glass of wine allotted to me during my ten days of antibiotics.
I switch the channel to Emeril Lagasse on the ‘Food Network.’
I start to cry.
Are steak au poivre and shoes string potatoes really that moving? No, of course not. But, he’s so damned patient deglazing the pan…adding Dijon mustard… pouring the most delicate touch of cream. His spoon patiently circles the sautee pan… Is something sticking to the copper bottom? Emeril’s brow furrows, the nose quivers, the eyes grow concerned, the big mouth turns downward and hopes that everything will go smoothly.
I need Emeril. Emeril would tend to me, take care of me, protect me.Forever.
PROTECTION, SECURITY—this is the stripped-down answer (or, some version, thereof) of every woman North or South of the Mason-Dixon, East or West of the Mississippi. Freud, this is what women want.
I’ve watched the Food Network more this past week while being sick (with no appetite) than I have in my entire life. I go to the website. I think of ways to be a phone-in guest on “Sarah’s Secrets.” Really, though, I only pay attention when the hosts are male. Somehow, they’re caring for me. They’re gentle. Their kitchens are warm.
I’ll go to bed a little happier tonight—feeling a bit more safe--because Emeril taught us how to make challah. He kneaded the dough like I need someone to massage my aching back. He draped a dry, warm cloth over the yeasty mass so it would grow. He told us all that patience and a little love would make everything turn out beautifully.
Charlie? Are you reading? This is my answer. This is what I should have told you on the phone.
His question is a cliché, so why do I feel compelled to answer him? It must be his tone—it’s equal parts sweetness, anxiety and curiosity. (Then again, maybe it’s his charming Birmingham accent—when he talks it’s all vowels and minted iced tea). The boy needs something.
I’m a little disappointed that I respond with such standard fare as, “We want a lot of things—everything, really. Love, friendship, intelligent conversation, café au lait and brioche in bed, diamonds on every major federal holiday and anniversary…”
I hang up.
I drool over Adrien Grenier in “Entourage.”
I have the one glass of wine allotted to me during my ten days of antibiotics.
I switch the channel to Emeril Lagasse on the ‘Food Network.’
I start to cry.
Are steak au poivre and shoes string potatoes really that moving? No, of course not. But, he’s so damned patient deglazing the pan…adding Dijon mustard… pouring the most delicate touch of cream. His spoon patiently circles the sautee pan… Is something sticking to the copper bottom? Emeril’s brow furrows, the nose quivers, the eyes grow concerned, the big mouth turns downward and hopes that everything will go smoothly.
I need Emeril. Emeril would tend to me, take care of me, protect me.Forever.
PROTECTION, SECURITY—this is the stripped-down answer (or, some version, thereof) of every woman North or South of the Mason-Dixon, East or West of the Mississippi. Freud, this is what women want.
I’ve watched the Food Network more this past week while being sick (with no appetite) than I have in my entire life. I go to the website. I think of ways to be a phone-in guest on “Sarah’s Secrets.” Really, though, I only pay attention when the hosts are male. Somehow, they’re caring for me. They’re gentle. Their kitchens are warm.
I’ll go to bed a little happier tonight—feeling a bit more safe--because Emeril taught us how to make challah. He kneaded the dough like I need someone to massage my aching back. He draped a dry, warm cloth over the yeasty mass so it would grow. He told us all that patience and a little love would make everything turn out beautifully.
Charlie? Are you reading? This is my answer. This is what I should have told you on the phone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)