Monday, May 14, 2012

These streets will make you feel brand new, these lights will inspire you... now you're in New York


There are 50 states in the United States, we come from one of the smallest (Maryland) of the 50 and live in an equally small town where the most outrageous parties happen in cow pastures and corn fields and if you’re lucky someone lends out their barn. The first date I ever had with my husband was swimming in the town reservoir, which was also the town’s drinking water. The second date, we fished in it. When we got serious we camped out at a bonfire. So you can imagine my excitement when I got word our first duty station was going to be in NEW YORK! We were actually going to join the world and become city savvy! Ironically enough, we are stationed in a town probably 10 people larger but instead of fields and pastures we have mountains. It actually snowed in April.

I am in disbelief.

Accents are like flags, a high flyin’ sign that ‘you’re not from here.’ Nobody thinks they have an accent. We finally got a call that someone had moved out of their 3-bedroom house on base and were eager to move in and get friendly with our new neighbors! I always imagined myself being close with the people around me- how could it be possible to live next door and barely know one another? Well, I suppose that just shows I’ve obviously never lived close enough to any other houses to have neighbors! HELLO! Nobody likes their neighbors!

I guess I kind of fantasized the home we would live in as well. I thought it would be a cute little house with a flag out front, a small garden in the back, maybe a porch swing and the day we moved in all the neighbors would flock to our door with greetings and warm wishes of friendship.

Not even close.

The closest we got to a greeting was the lady to the left explaining that if we heard any knocking she was merely just preparing for the homecoming of her deployed husband. Probably didn’t have anything to do with the fellow stopping by every day after she got home from work and making the huge ruckus departing at all hours of the night; eventually she pulled me aside and explained how she didn’t like girls, they were too caddy for her so she preferred to have only male friends. That’s nice.

The guy next to her approached us completely intoxicated only to disclose the most personal details of his recent de-motion. And the lovely couple to the right of us doesn’t seem to speak any English.

Anyways, so accents and dispositions are a true telling of where a person is from or rather that they are new to an area.

Cramped up in a home of boxes and empty rooms can get a little nauseating; for this reason nature walks and playground visits have become a daily ritual for myself and the children. That is until I got the email. I would have been perfectly content in never being enlightened about the dangers within our homestead. Apparently, there was a small black bear spotted rummaging through some trashcans. Well, this set our family on lock-down. The rest of the neighborhood, who I’m sure received that very same email, continued their daily routines of outdoor play before and after dinner while I sat frantic by the front door rifle in hand for fear of a bear attack.

We must just be the new family….

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