What You Wish For
A few years ago, I hated Atlanta.
I worked in a coffeeshop where most of the people I saw day in and out were customers who could afford to lay down three or five bucks every morning on some coffee and steamed milk, could afford to take fifteen minutes to stand around with neighbors and friends and chat and laugh and catch up, could afford this little world, this community paid for with this hot paper cup they grasped between their hands. I was jealous of them.
There were also those, yes, who swept in on their cellphones and swept out in their Miatas, who threw their bills down each day and barked out their orders or worse, waved their hands in a manner both impatient with and dismissive of the baristas who knew their drinks by memory. There were those who were rude or mean, and - worse somehow - there were those who were friendly, who would strike up conversations day after day. We became fond of them and felt the flower of friendship begin to spring up, a bud that never saw the light of day – doomed because, all things considered, there we were behind the counter, and there they were on the other side, and sooner or later all it came down to was whether we’d toasted the bagel well enough or whether the silver canister was out of half and half. There was nowhere for those friendships to go. They were stunted from the get-go.
I took that dynamic with our customers and the resulting Comrades-on-a-Lifeboat, Fuck-‘Em-All dynamic with my coworkers and, on four or five hours of sleep every night plus days spent on my feet eating muffins and drinking caffeinated beverages, I carried that outlook into the rest of my life. I was a bike rider in a world of shiny Cooper Minis that zoomed by too fast and splashed water on my legs and butt as I pedaled – me, a tattooed, tank-topped clerk with unshaven armpits, always buzzed or crashing from caffeine.
Who was also at odds with those lifeboat-comrades. The coworkers/friends/only people I ever really hung out with because they were the only ones who understood every detail of daily life. I was the girl who had gone to college - who had loved college - who respected authority and was shitty at poker and missed rules and health insurance and routine and talked with her parents for long stretches every week or two and got along quite well with all her kin. I felt patted-on-the-head and was patted on the head by coworkers who joked good-naturedly over Ambitious Alice and thought me naïve and sweet and a tad dizzy. And I had a boyfriend with whom I lived and fought over about money and loved madlymadly. And he was one of the lifeboat-comrades, which complicated matters. And we hated Atlanta and its car culture and its nouveau riche tackiness and one day he did something about it and left. And then things changed.
I started working full-time at Small Publication and left the coffeeshop. I started spending time with people who valued passionate careers and who weren’t afraid of trying for something they might fail at. And then I started popping into the coffeeshop a few days a week when I could afford it. I’d go to parties where I met people who did everything under the sun and made their homes here Atlanta. It wasn’t just the place they lived while they squirreled away money. They were writers and city planners and accountants and bartenders and cheese purveyors and ACLU lawyers and massage therapists and hardware store clerks and high school teachers and international fax technicians - and everyone had something to say and I joined a rock band and I learned to knit and I learned still more about this city and state as I wrote stories and interviewed people doing still more fascinating things here in this town. I went jogging and bike riding on weekends along trails that run through town and hiked Stone Mountain. I started dating a very, very sweet man. I started spending more time with The Best Nieces in the World. I started participating in activities at my Unitarian church.
Now, all of a sudden, I have the opportunity to leave. I found out Friday I got into one of the top nonfiction MFA programs in the country at the University of Pittsburgh, and suddenly, it’s real; it’s a voice and it’s saying You can go. It’s a ticket.
And I will go. I’ll take it. I’ll either go there or to one of my other top choices; I’ll figure it out as responses continue to trickle in. But now it’s not so easy.
Today I had lunch with a guy with StoryCorps, an amazing oral history project that, err, Small Publication is hosting during its stay here in Atlanta, and I was telling him about The Beltline project and about a thousand-one quirky, cool things here in and around Atlanta to make sure he does before he leaves, and I was a god damned motormouth; a bouncy, bubbly – possibly a bit dizzy-sounding – motormouth. Someone who sounded like she really loved her town. Her town.
A few years ago, I hated Atlanta.
I worked in a coffeeshop where most of the people I saw day in and out were customers who could afford to lay down three or five bucks every morning on some coffee and steamed milk, could afford to take fifteen minutes to stand around with neighbors and friends and chat and laugh and catch up, could afford this little world, this community paid for with this hot paper cup they grasped between their hands. I was jealous of them.
There were also those, yes, who swept in on their cellphones and swept out in their Miatas, who threw their bills down each day and barked out their orders or worse, waved their hands in a manner both impatient with and dismissive of the baristas who knew their drinks by memory. There were those who were rude or mean, and - worse somehow - there were those who were friendly, who would strike up conversations day after day. We became fond of them and felt the flower of friendship begin to spring up, a bud that never saw the light of day – doomed because, all things considered, there we were behind the counter, and there they were on the other side, and sooner or later all it came down to was whether we’d toasted the bagel well enough or whether the silver canister was out of half and half. There was nowhere for those friendships to go. They were stunted from the get-go.
I took that dynamic with our customers and the resulting Comrades-on-a-Lifeboat, Fuck-‘Em-All dynamic with my coworkers and, on four or five hours of sleep every night plus days spent on my feet eating muffins and drinking caffeinated beverages, I carried that outlook into the rest of my life. I was a bike rider in a world of shiny Cooper Minis that zoomed by too fast and splashed water on my legs and butt as I pedaled – me, a tattooed, tank-topped clerk with unshaven armpits, always buzzed or crashing from caffeine.
Who was also at odds with those lifeboat-comrades. The coworkers/friends/only people I ever really hung out with because they were the only ones who understood every detail of daily life. I was the girl who had gone to college - who had loved college - who respected authority and was shitty at poker and missed rules and health insurance and routine and talked with her parents for long stretches every week or two and got along quite well with all her kin. I felt patted-on-the-head and was patted on the head by coworkers who joked good-naturedly over Ambitious Alice and thought me naïve and sweet and a tad dizzy. And I had a boyfriend with whom I lived and fought over about money and loved madlymadly. And he was one of the lifeboat-comrades, which complicated matters. And we hated Atlanta and its car culture and its nouveau riche tackiness and one day he did something about it and left. And then things changed.
I started working full-time at Small Publication and left the coffeeshop. I started spending time with people who valued passionate careers and who weren’t afraid of trying for something they might fail at. And then I started popping into the coffeeshop a few days a week when I could afford it. I’d go to parties where I met people who did everything under the sun and made their homes here Atlanta. It wasn’t just the place they lived while they squirreled away money. They were writers and city planners and accountants and bartenders and cheese purveyors and ACLU lawyers and massage therapists and hardware store clerks and high school teachers and international fax technicians - and everyone had something to say and I joined a rock band and I learned to knit and I learned still more about this city and state as I wrote stories and interviewed people doing still more fascinating things here in this town. I went jogging and bike riding on weekends along trails that run through town and hiked Stone Mountain. I started dating a very, very sweet man. I started spending more time with The Best Nieces in the World. I started participating in activities at my Unitarian church.
Now, all of a sudden, I have the opportunity to leave. I found out Friday I got into one of the top nonfiction MFA programs in the country at the University of Pittsburgh, and suddenly, it’s real; it’s a voice and it’s saying You can go. It’s a ticket.
And I will go. I’ll take it. I’ll either go there or to one of my other top choices; I’ll figure it out as responses continue to trickle in. But now it’s not so easy.
Today I had lunch with a guy with StoryCorps, an amazing oral history project that, err, Small Publication is hosting during its stay here in Atlanta, and I was telling him about The Beltline project and about a thousand-one quirky, cool things here in and around Atlanta to make sure he does before he leaves, and I was a god damned motormouth; a bouncy, bubbly – possibly a bit dizzy-sounding – motormouth. Someone who sounded like she really loved her town. Her town.
posted by Alice at 3:45 PM
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