I’m from New Jersey
“Those early years in New Jersey were amazing. We lived in a really small town with tons of kids my age. There were fields and woods and a creek — it was a pretty ideal place to be a little kid.” – James Murphy
Sometimes we go somewhere for a reason that becomes an entirely different reason once the journey is complete. I recently spent six days in Manhattan, which was booked in, honestly, a snit, as I found my patience exhausted by my husband's adjustment to retirement in Northern Michigan. Also I longed for diversity of people, places, and, yes, noise. Here on the Leelanau Peninsula, there is paradise and a gilded cage that somehow makes the beauty, trees, lakes, rolling hills, squirrels, wild turkeys, and deer less appealing. You miss seeing people who don't look like you, speak a different language, or have a different accent; the sounds of a city with its crowds of people, sirens, and car horns bring peace rather than pain.
photo by Jakayla Toney
But this trip was about finally connecting with my surviving sister, the last remaining part of our family of origin. Since our eldest sister was killed by a drunk driver in 1984, we have struggled to find a way to love each other. On this trip, me at sixty-six, her at sixty-nine, without an actual conversation or rehashing of past grievances, we reconciled. Quietly, with a few tears on both sides, we recognized that we had a limited time to be in one another's lives. We went to a fundraiser for an alternative St. Patrick's Day parade, necessary since the organizers decided to bar LGBTQ participants from the main one. We occupied a couch, watched lovely Indian girls dance, witnessed amazing Irish dancing, and listened to a few musicians. Mostly, it felt like I was her little sister, and she was glad I was there. Later in the week, I was invited to dinner, and we also visited the 9/11 memorial, a tragic final resting place for so many innocent victims.
I have taken similar trips, including a trip back to Dublin, where I spent my junior year abroad, to the memorial service for my best friend that year who had died of a brain tumor. Those of us present during that wild year spoke of our pasts, the drugs, the drinking, alcohol-fueled parties and romantic entanglements, a feeling we would live forever but clearly not. Gabrielle's voice was heard in all its beauty and confusion recorded on an answering machine as she tried to invite the person to a dinner party but got distracted enough to simply hang up without providing details. This tragedy pulled some of us back together, and then I went home again, letting go of that mythical year, my beautiful friend, the lovers I had hurt, and those who hurt me back.
Years ago, when my now grown son was a little boy, I left him to attend a writing retreat in Taos, New Mexico. His father and I were trying to stay married, but things were not good. We had an immediate engagement followed by marriage, moving to London, and then the birth of our baby. Just shy of a year, he was promoted to a job in Dallas, and I, trailing spouse, followed on trying to become a “wife” while I was slowly losing my identity as a writer. We decided to move to Chicago after two years in Texas, but there was a window of opportunity between selling the Dallas house and moving when my son could stay with his paternal uncle, and I could go to the desert. I went, and while my ex-husband was angry at my leaving, this was a life-saving decision. I had lost my way badly enough to contemplate driving my car into a brick wall despite my absolute adoration of my infant son.
There, in the beauty and the solitude, I met a Canadian painter who saw me as I was before the baby and marriage. We talked about art and writing, and unencumbered by my identity defined by institutions, I recovered the Manhattan writer person I had lost in translation. In short, I fell in love, even though I was a married woman with a baby. We did not sleep together, but I left with a broken heart, driving many miles to recover my son and listening to a mixed tape he made me that was full of love songs and songs about leaving one's old life behind.
We wrote to one another and spoke on the phone. Since we'd moved to Chicago, another city where I knew no one, I saw an opportunity to attend his art opening just across the border in Canada. When I told my then husband, he accused me of “emotional adultery.” Evidently, the phone bills had contained nearly daily calls to Canada. I went to Windsor on a train, wondering whether I would be welcomed or had made a terrible mistake. My fantasy of this relationship was not grounded in reality, and even though it was wonderful to see him again, he was not taking on a runaway wife and child. But the journey was about something else. I needed to remember I had choices and also to regain my power as a female artist who was also a devoted mother. Painfully, I recognized that this marriage based on so much love was no longer a good one. I returned to Chicago, and we attended counseling. Then, sadly, we divorced.
This trip to New York City reminded me of my East Coast roots and how I have been trying to accept the “midwestern nice” as something to strive towards for almost twenty years. Meanwhile, people here in Michigan, Chicago, and Dallas constantly ensure you appreciate their backgrounds. I'm from New Jersey and was born into a community that embraced diversity and honesty and took responsibility for how you acted towards others. I no longer feel pressure to hide my true identity. I'm happy to be in book clubs, smile some of the time, and accept the scrim so many people in this part of the country have in place. But I don't have a scrim.
As John Gorka said: “New Jersey people/They will surprise you/'Cause they're not expected to do too much/ They will try harder/ They may go further/'Cause they never think/ That they are good enough.”
—Molly Moynahan, author and writing coach