A Tumble of Sweet Things to Come My Way
Memphis was recently named the third saddest city in the country. Just after Detroit, and some place in Florida.
I’m not going to lie, as a newcomer, I have noticed some sad things about Memphis. But there are sad things in other places too—every place probably. But the endearing (and challenging) thing about Memphis is the way it refuses to hide the poverty, crime, and corruption. And the hitsory! So rich, but still tender. And good Lord, what about all those people driving their old model cars ever so s-l-o-w-l-y and without turn signals along Poplar Avenue with its tiny fourth lane! Now that tiny lane is sad. Speaking of Poplar, all of Memphis seemed to at Macy’s at Oak Court today, where the music annoyed me coming as it did in the form of different songs (1980s music streaming from accessories, hip hop blaring from juniors), two gigantic waves of sound colliding in my head. But at least it wasn’t Mariah Carey screeching out Christmas songs, so why the heck was I so grumpy? Probably because besides the collision of music, it was still shopping, after all. But mostly it was a party. Workers handed out treats on trays. But even that I could be grumpy about—imaging how a team of marketers probably recommended the party atmosphere to boost sales and shouldn’t they be ashamed, given how small local incomes—the way those marketers would dare to inflict good music on good people in an effort to sell their Chinese-made tunics and knee-high boots!
But on my way out of the store (grasping a bag containing my own Chinese-made tunic), I nearly fell over a woman and the cleaning cart she’d parked mid-aisle. Damn, I thought. But then I saw she was leaning on the cart for support because she was that tired and that old, so she’d set her stomach against it as she probably had for years, so that the cart looked like it had become part of the woman. But that was only her mid-section, that meeting of cart and cleaning lady. The rest of her?
In flight.
Arms raised, hands snapping high over her head, eyes closed, legs making smooth circles from the hip…the woman was having herself a little party between racks of tunics and the counters of this season’s shades of eyeshadow.
It’s true. Sometimes Memphis is sad. But it is also many other things, including real honesty and soul and pockets of spirit; such things that rarely make it onto polls and city lists.
I could describe the Cooper-Young Festival, named for the revitalized city neighborhood in which I live, how proud they are of their zip code (they even sell 38104 t-shirts) and the pomegranate punch that knocked my socks off and the way they sold catfish sandwiches and 12 inch corn dogs, or I could mull over what happened at the Thai restaurant, why the woman who served us turned unfriendly after a whispered interaction with a overweight burkaed woman and her double-sized mate over dessert options, and why I was happy to see an oversized posed photograph of the Queen of Thailand instead of the same old Buddha/lotus/temple scenes, and how that tofu peanut sauce dish I ordered was so good and why when Jim didn’t like his whole wheat tofu (which isn’t actually tofu) with mushrooms and I tried to eat it, knowing I would hate how earthy it tasted, knowing I haven’t the makings for food martyrdom. Instead, I’ll just show the bridge over the Mississippi, one of several in Memphis, this one shines at night and is named for the explorer who is said to be buried in that same river. I’ll just stop writing and let the bridge stand in for words.
Memphis #1
This is Elphie. I bought him at Whole Foods this afternoon for several reasons. One, because I needed a plant in this room with its traces of old cigarettes and Chinese takeout, and lucky bamboo with its symbolism and the fact that I just left some with my sister and mother-in-law made it seem right somehow. Two, because my old counselor collected elephants, whole ceramic herds of them, and though I found them tacky and even threatening at times, they now just remind me of him; the importance of quiet acceptance and of challenging ourselves. Finally, because Whole Foods with it’s bags of organic apples and seven kinds of prepared tofu made me happy, and in fact, when I saw him sitting on his shelf of plants, I was sure that Elphie was smiling at me. In a city of strange license plates (which look oddly like New Hampshire’s) and trees I don’t know the names of and women half my age who call me “girl”, I have my own green elephant…now, if in two months, it’s just me and Elphie, and we’re wearing matching t-shirts, you can start to worry. But for now, know that I have something smiling and green in front of me, and sometimes that’s enough.
