Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Moving to the Windy City

Yep, getting ready to make the big move from the temperate Bay Area to Chicago...in December. Anyone have any suggestions on my baptism by fire, er, I mean wind?

Naturally, or maybe not for some, I have some anxieties over moving. I've been in Oakland for almost ten years and although my immediate family is centered in Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Detroit I've created a support system for myself here that for the most part, has lasted through the years and sustained and nurtured me through some very tough times. As the child of a preacher, one would think I would be used to picking up and moving cross country. That is not the case. As a child, it's a bit different. My parents were the ones who had to coordinate, prepare, pack, and bear most of the burden of figuring all the logistics out. But I do know that some of my anxiety that has appeared is connected to this.

The first major move that had a clear impact on me was from Kansas City, Missouri to Pacific Palisades, California. I was going into the sixth grade. Imagine a girl, too tall, lanky, huge glasses, had just started her period and hated having to deal with all that, and was a complete tomboy to boot. I had no concern over my appearance and was more than happy to go outside in shorts and a t shirt, coordination of colors be damned. In short, I had no fashion sense whatsoever, no interest in makeup, and was just beginning to feel uncomfortable in my body. When we moved to Pacific Palisades and I saw those girls in their tank tops, shorts, flip flops and lip gloss I felt like a complete country bumpkin. While I made friends fairly quickly, we weren't in the same class and often I found myself sitting on the bench at recess trying to hide my out of style clothing.

The second move that had such an effect was from Berkeley to New Haven. When I left UC Berkeley, I was in disgrace, on academic probation and the disappointment I felt from my parents across the U.S. was immense. I was hardest on myself and moving from a freewheeling town like Berkeley to a hardcore Italian burb like North Haven was traumatic at the very least. While I beat up on myself, my father's disappointment and anger rained down on me even harder; making it near impossible for some time afterwards to really forgive myself. My mother, who's anger towards me was justified, took a much more moderate approach, at least from what I could tell. I hated North Haven with the exception of one woman who became my best friend there and had travelled well beyond the town limits.

The third, it was the move from New Haven to Orange County in California. My brother and I decided to move back with our father while our mother and sister stayed behind. For Joshua and I, California seemed like a beacon of civilization that we had been accustomed to. We were wrong. We were the housekeepers and secretaries of the household and if our father's expectations had been high of us in North Haven, they were doubly and unreasonably so in Orange County. Joshua was going to school and having trouble adjusting, I was working and going to school full time and there were of course, the usual expectations on us to display a certain public image as the two children of a black pastor in a largely white, affluent and conservative area.

My move to freedom as I think of it sometimes was when I decided to go back to school. I applied to Mills College, was accepted, and even though I had to live with a friend of my father's the first year, I enjoyed what freedom I had. I've stayed ever since. So in the past couple of weeks I've started boxing up books, cleaning out drawers and closets which really doesn't long in a studio but there's still a sense of being unsettled in a space of controlled chaos and knowing that I won't be seeing the Oakland Hills for some time...

Then again, I was born in Evanston so this is going to be a strange and foreign homecoming. I'm excited about it but sometimes the thought of learning the geographics of a new place overwhelms me (I am one of those unfortunate people who are geographically challenged). To new beginnings and hopefully, an end to the fear of change that's haunted me for so long.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home