I have always known that the East Coast is a fast-paced and intense place. That underlying energy and intensity are a big part of the reason Boston appealed to me when I moved there so many years ago from my beloved and laid-back Santa Cruz. I remember once reading a study about the fastest- paced places in the country (observed, as I recall, by people who, among other methods, looked down upon a street and timed how long it took walkers to walk a city block, and how often they looked at a watch), and New York and Boston were champions. In some ways I love that intensity, and it has been a fuel for me all these years. But after more than two months on the road, in the South, I am starting to see the error of my ways. Some of this is retirement, which does slow a body down. But if I was feeling a slowing down while we were in Florida, then Alabama and New Orleans have invaded my hurry-up and overtaken my move-along like never before.
I'm finding that my general pace of activity has slowed down quite a bit. I am feeling noticeably more relaxed and less worried. I instinctively start thinking I need to speed things up, and then I realize it's okay. I've gotten more relaxed about how long it takes to get service somewhere, or how the line I have chosen at the grocery store turns out to be the slowest line. Instead of moving to another line, I've just been saying "so what?" I know for sure that this has GOT to be good for me. I think Southerners know something about things happening at their own pace, and I am learning something valuable. A downside, perhaps, is that maybe the South has been slower to change some things that could use a bit of an update. But it's happening. It just feels about ten years behind in some ways. (Some of that, I think, is that I haven't learned the way things work in this culture, and I can't really see how things are from the outside.) But in the meantime, the most obvious difference is the incredible friendliness and genuine kindness that we have seen everywhere. New Englanders are so reserved! I've gotten so used to it that I have stopped noticing it. But the friendliness of people here is astonishing. It has been a joyful thing to experience.
We had a wonderful time in the Mobile area and learned a lot of things. For one thing, we learned that Mobile Bay is the place where five rivers drain into the Gulf, and as the second largest delta, it is an environment with the richest aquatic diversity in North America, and one of the richest in the world. They call it North America's Amazon. Some crazy high percentage of all the birds in North America are there, and apparently the Mobile-Tensaw delta is one of our planet's most diverse and interesting ecologies, and also one of the most threatened. It is being majorly ruined by lack of oversight of industry and by utter disregard by the state of Alabama. They know about what is happening to the ecosystem, but they have made the decision to place environmental concerns at the bottom of their priorities. It's pretty sad, and it marks another kind of difference from what it's like in the South and where I am used to being.
While we were in Mobile we celebrated Mardi Gras in Gulf Shores. Our friends in Mobile made sure we knew that the Mardi Gras tradition really started in Mobile, so we weren't getting some second rate celebration! It was lots of fun. It's crazy when the floats are going by in the parade, how much you want to catch the beads, and how proud you are to get them. It's funny too how the next day, you look at them and they seems less like True Pirate Treasure, and more like a pile of plastic beads that you don't know what to do with! During Mardi Gras we went to a famous and incredibly festive restaurant, Lulu's, and saw the Mardi Gras boat parade there, which was lots of fun. And more beads, too, but thrown from boats. Here, for all history, is our pile of beads. Doesn't it look Glamorous?
Our Mardi Gras haul
We had a wonderful visit with our friends Sharon and Paul there, and seeing for a few days what it is like to live in a place so very different from Boston was illuminating and instructive. I live in a place where a lot of people see the world in a way that is very similar to my own. Our friends live in a place where they are quite different from most of their neighbors. The way people in the South (or any place, for that matter), who might disagree with many of the policies of their state and local governments, and with the attitudes of most of their their neighbors, still deeply love their place, and still feel at home, was very educational for me, and a big step in my expanding understanding of this very diverse and interesting country.
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