After a year away from humble Virginia, I return to the place I used to call home. Immediately the humidity greeting party arrives and smacks me dead in the face with a gentle reminder of just how wet the air here truly is (or just how dry it is in Southern California). Either way, the skies are gray and the clouds are indistinguishable from each other forming one massive cloud who is crying with all it’s got. With no checked bags I head towards the care rental center and graciously accept the generous free upgrade. “Welcome home my prince!”.
My agenda will prove to be a busy one and not suitable for the faint of heart. There is a difference between vacation and exploration and this is not the former but the latter. A vacation for me is laying about with my feet detached from the ground, surrounded by some big water source, and, a few sexy ladies bringing me dark-colored drinks all while their feeding me grapes and… well you get the gist. This is not that. Not even close. The most action I’ll get is the poor young man at the airport who’s slipping his hands between my waist and the jeans I’m wearing because something about my butt triggered that enormous machine into thinking I was threat. C’est la vie.
From Sterling and Ashburn down 81to Roanoke then up 29 to Charlottesville and Fredericksburg followed by 64 to Staunton (pronounced Stan-ten) and finally back up 29 to Dulles International. For me, and all of my wonderful hosts, no night will end before midnight, no stomach will be less than half full and no liver will be free from purging the poison-esque drank we choose to pour down our throats. All in all, I will be sleeping in seven different beds over the course of 11 nights. To most this is probably an insane schedule but to me, the man that left all family and friends behind on the pursuit of a dream of (self)exploration, it’s an insane schedule and a week of introvertedness is a likely future.
I ended up driving over a thousand miles on that Civic (Sport Touring thank you very much). The most exercise I did was play golf, which should be nothing but since I spend most of my time looking for balls, not a bad way to get my steps in. If it wasn’t for that I probably would’ve popped a button of the tuxedo and torn the slacks as I bust a move. Nonetheless, I balanced all that scrumptious consumption by sweating my way through the dance-floor, leaving my sweaty marks on the shirt, the vest, the tie, the pants, and all the married ladies that attended the beautiful ceremony. As I examined the goods the next day, I ask myself “How they get these tough brown-yellow marks off the collar…? Beats me; it’s a rental (and I feel for the poor fellow who will wear this shirt after me)”. Goodwill surely would say something like “Miss me with that shit you handsome sweaty bastard”.
The fact that us groomsmen were asked to wear cowboy boots should paint a pretty picture as to what this event would be like. My boots, like the rest of me (because a tuxedo will make any dud look like a pimp), were just plain sexy. And to think that I found them at a thrift shop, in Southern California. They are maroon with black flames on the pointy front end, size 11. My pants however (which we’re corrected), a solid three inches too short. The reason I danced the whole night was because if I sat down you would have been able to see my knees, scandalous. The other groomsmen found this very hilarious and I milked the shit out of it. Imagine this Dominican guy, clearly out of his element though super suave, with lady cowboy boots and pants that were too short. Oh yeah, these cowboy boots that all the women and men complimented me on, very likely to be cowlady heels.
All jokes aside, and because of my introspective nature and all that driving (and consequently flying across the country), I had moments, even with all the drinking and eating, to reflect. Having my perspective broaden by the vastness that is America made me forget what the culture of Virginia is like. In California it feels like you can do whatever the fuck you want. Out here though things are so proper and everyone seems sad and depressed. No wonder I left.
The vastness that is the Shenandoah Valley, with its rolling green mountains on either side that just seem to roll on forever, like a ripple across a still pond, made me feel nice and small. And the smell of cow shit, “ahhh glorious!”. How people settle along these mountains, similar to how they do in North Carolina, beats me.
On an even realer note, my sensitivity to being a non-white in southern Virginia quickly rose to the top of my awareness as I remembered what it’s like to be in the one-percent (and I don’t mean income, that’s more like ten-percent). In San Diego is rare for me not to speak Spanish, I mean shit most of the streets and towns are Spanish words. Out here something like Rio Road is pronounced rye-o road and not the Spanish word for river.
I’m thankful that the people whom I call friends, who have spent most of their lives in the Valley and who’s parents and grandparents have also spent most of their lives in the valley, are conscious enough to make me forget that this thing we call race is an issue. I couldn’t help but wonder however, just how exactly I got here, and more importantly, why. Seems like a lot of trouble just to get me to wear cowlady heels and salta-chalcos (a dominican slang for pants that are so short the wearer automatically jumps over all puddles. It’s not a compliment or some magical buff).
I left la bella Quisqueya named La Republica Dominicana at age 13. Then, I had no idea nor control of where I’d grow up or what my home will be. My early teenage years were spent between Corpus Christi, TX and Culpeper, VA. In one, an emotionally abusive man who exacerbated the existing friction between my mother and I, in the other, my older sister, her young son and her new (not ex) husband who never anticipated taking in his new mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Then it was Bridgewater, VA, home of Bridgewater College where I would meet some of these wonderful Children of The Valley and complete my undergrad. Then, six years in Reston, VA where life was dull and filled with routine, yet close to the comfort of my family and a nest for me to eventually fly off. Which all lead to this very moment, for me to write this essay and attempt to convey a feeling that our lives, though significant, are small and filled with perfect twists and turns.
We often think that the best thing we can do for our lives and thus the best time to spend our time is by achieving wealth, power, status. Or we are absolutely drained by the simple day-to-day stuff because we still work in a world based on laws from World War II. If this trip showed me one thing is that the most important use of our time is spent expressing love for the people who we care for most. While we cannot always see the effects that our loving actions have on those close to us, believe that your actions have a ripple-effect that are felt across all your people and your peoples people, therefore, do us all a favor and continue to act and operate from a place of Love. Thank you.
