Holly Korbey - Outside/In

Going back to Big D

They say it's just like riding a bike.

I've been off for a couple of weeks now, haven't written a word, spent my Christmas in New Hampshire with my in-laws. I've eaten a lot of finger foods, probably too many (especially my mother-in-law's Lebanese pastry, kaak - toasted just a little, they're delicious); I've had even more glasses of red wine. I've contracted and treated strep throat, the "Christmas strep," as has the rest of the family. I have joked about requesting the gallon-jug of amoxicillin at the pharmacy. I have spent many evenings playing Sorry, TriOminos, and chess with my sons and husband.

But now, I'm rested and healthy and ready to get back to the work at hand: trying to live two places at once - Brooklyn and Dallas, and be two people at once - Dallasinian and Brooklynite. And to explain to you what it's like being these two people.

It's very difficult to do.

When we were flying back to Dallas from Boston last week, on our downward descent into Dallas/Fort Worth, I looked out the window at the miles and miles of flat brown fields, a lake or creek tossed here or there, gobs of sunshine poured on top, and when we made a wide turn in our jet, and I got a glimpse of the city - a few tall, glassy, steely buildings that appear to be rising up straight out of a dirt field - it just didn't feel like home. It felt like camp. Camp is a place you go on vacation, a place you go to relax, and maybe that's just Dallas' vibe - it feels too relaxed to be my home. Or maybe I just haven't taken the time to make it my home. I don't know the psychological reasons for it, but for one reason or another, Holly is still "just visiting", thanks.

Dallas feels temporary still. I wonder every day if we'll be here long - at this point, I can't really tell. I have certainly let go of any of my preconceived notions of location becoming my identity. Well. That sounds amazingly spiritually sound, doesn't it? I got it from a book. I say certainly, but I still think of myself as a New Yorker. I still actually call myself a New Yorker. I got caught at the park just the other day lying to myself (and an unsuspecting mom):

A mom said, is this weather cold enough for you? I think it was around 60 degrees at the time. In January!
I said, oh, jeez, no way, I'm a New Yorker. This is springtime for us. A New Yorker? Oh, do you live in New York? Um. No. Did you move from New York? Yes! Oh, very recently then? Well, it's been over a year and a half.

Sounds pathetic.

Where Is Everybody?

I’m down here in Dallas, Texas. It’s hot – very hot – and dry. It is not the dusty, country cow-town place I half-expected from the city that birthed Southfork Ranch – actually, there’s no dust and no country at all, Dallas is a sparkling and spread megapolis, very sunny and clean, with lots of retail, it actually reminds me a bit of the newer parts of L.A. It is a different world, an entire earth away from the life I had in Brooklyn.

Everyone here drives everywhere – not a fault, there’s no way to get anywhere without a car - and things are really spread out, so one spends what I believe to be an inordinate amount of time in the car. As a result, I hate my iPod. When we moved to Texas, my husband got me a long cord that has a blank and scary-looking cassette tape on one end, and a little metal pole on the other end, and through the mysteries of modern technology via the obsolete music methods of cars assembled in past decades, my old Volvo is able to play the same damn songs I’ve had on my iPod for 3 years during the many hours my sons and I seem to spend, trapped and breathing on each other, inside the car.

Many of the homes here in Dallas are connected at the back by a series of alleys, and the driveways and garages of the homes are connected to the alleys, so nearly all people who are driving cars – ie, everyone - are pulling into the alleys to park in their garages, then walking inside their homes from a hidden back entrance. It sounds very fancy, and this being Dallas, sometimes it is indeed a very fancy, don’t-let-the-neighbors-see-us kind of richy-rich back entrance to a house with a security entrance and a gate and those metal buttons that you push. But it’s not the rule. We have a back-alley entrance and driveway, and we’re not at all like that. Not at all. It’s not the alleys and the driveways themselves that are so bad, but there is an aching and silent loneliness that occurs when standing in one’s front yard, like there’s been some sort of neighbor evaporation. A conversation holocaust.

There’s nobody around.

We’ve never seen any of our neighbors in their front yards, and we’ve lived in this house for 6 months. Okay, once, we saw some people. Our neighbors across the street had some sort of sprinkler accident, their built-in yard sprinklers went off at the wrong time, I’m guessing, and they were out there in the middle of the afternoon investigating the problem. I was looking out the window, sponging down the kitchen sink, and I spied them. There they were. Real neighbors. They looked like they might be happy people. They were silver-haired and wearing matching khaki shorts with pleats. I thought I might run out and say hello, but by the time I got the shoes on the kids and we were out, and there we were, standing on our very green grass in the middle of a 105-degree afternoon, they had obviously fixed the problem, and disappeared. My son said, “Mommy, were they really outside? Are you sure you saw them?” My five-year-old thought I’d had a mirage. They didn’t come back out, although we stayed and played a while in the shade, just to see. I miss them to this day.

If a tree falls in the forest, will I hear it if I’m stuck in traffic?

I bet you’re wondering, does Dallas have people? Oh, yes, of course it does. There are people everywhere, literally spilling over, tons of people in cars and restaurants and bars and shopping malls. People swerving to avoid being hit by giant Yukons, people pushing grocery carts. Lots and lots of people swathed in spandex and sunglasses, riding bikes. What I find confounding is that I’m never connected to any of these people in any way. I’d love to reach out to some of them, any of them, and have them interact with me, and say hello. I want to put my hand out the car window, and wave to a stranger in traffic. I fantasize about them rolling down their window at a stoplight, and saying they'll meet for coffee. I love talking to the ladies at the grocery store. They are so friendly, and for a few moments, while they’re bagging me up, we chat about the weather, and they ask about the kids. I hate myself for ever saying that Brooklyn was too crowded, or that the subway was too invasive. There was an old lady in Kensington that spit on me once, when I wouldn’t give her the coffee I was drinking. I even look back on that fondly now. At least we were talking. At least I could tell her to stop it, and she could hear me speak.

To The Good Folks on Earth

To the Good People of Texas: I’m about to make a whole lot of assumptions about you. I don’t really mean it. I like living in Texas. At least, I think I do. You have lots of good barbeque, and some incredible shopping, and if the size of your cars down here was in any way related to how wonderful you were as people, then you could win a nationwide contest hands-down. I’m going to sell you down the river a bit as I describe my situation here in Dallas, but please do understand that I’m from New York. I hate to say it, but New York is better. No, really, it is. You have to go. And, George W. Bush is from Texas. You’re kind of asking for it.

To the Good People of New York City: I’m about to share a whole lot of truth about you, at least a version of the truth, because I lived with all of you for so long. If you’ve never been to Texas, then you just have no idea how different it is from New York. Like, really different. Really. Love you all. Miss you, Brooklyn. Word to your mother.

To the Good People of Everywhere Else: When was the last time you looked around you – at the houses, the people, the roads, the sky - and said to yourself, hey, baby, I dig this place?