American Odyssey

Sitting in a donut shop yesterday and watching people - customers, servers, loiterers, and various other comers and goers, I noticed something  - Americans seem to talk to each other more than the Brits.  There is more banter and commenting on life and weather and what people are ordering and generally a camaraderie that is non-existent in the UK.  On the surface the Americans I have met this week are much easier about chatting to others and smiling and seemingly more open.  I wonder if this goes beyond the surface at all?  Is this a genuinely open, friendly nation of people or is there a deeper mistrust of strangers that this covers up?

I have found myself in some interesting discussions in the past week.  When politics are mentioned I usually clam up and try desperately to avoid the subject, but sometimes this is really not possible and I have found that I am often diametrically opposed to the views that my fellow Americans seem so easily to express.  The reason I question the surface friendliness is that I have seen that below the surface there is a profound mistrust/dislike of the 'other', of strangers, of those different to them.  I find this so disturbing and see that I have well and truly moved away from here, not just because it's been 40 years since I lived in the US, but also because I choose to live in a society with much more diversity than your average American.  For me this means that I feel more comfortble in the world, that peoples' differences, be they skin colour, race, language, religion, sexuality or even politics, does not rock my narrow world so much.  I enjoy the diversity around me and it one of the best reasons for travelling to different places, even though in my case you would think it was only the food.

Speaking of food, my god, do the Americans eat! The portion sizes here still astound me and I see many people go home with a 'doggy bag' at the end of a meal.  A few nights back I ate in a very upscale place in West Palm Beach.  Now I am a real meat eater. Vegetarianism, though healthy, holds little appeal for me, but even I was amazed at being served a 350gr steak.  This steak looked big enough to serve my entire family and then some, but here it was a one person portion.  It was enough for me to satisfy my big appetite and have sandwiches the next day.  Why complain about how large people are becoming and then serve everything in humongous portions?! 

The other food thing for me here is my love of the sweets I ate as a kid.  Does everyone have candy memories?  Mine include those strips of paper with candy dots on them  - can't get enough of these ridiculous sweets and yet, thinking about them all they are are artificially coloured sugar dots stuck to strips of paper.  In order to eat them you have to scrape them off the paper and get remnants of paper stuck into your teeth. I love them and they are hard to find.  I intend to search them out and bring sackloads back to the UK with me. Just seeing some things makes me nostalgic for the Bronx I grew up in - knishes, hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut, NY pizza, Carvel ice cream, etc.  All these things bring back memories and every memory has a story. 

Stories - sometimes I think my life is made up of stories.  What is a history but a series of stories.  If I didn't have the series of stories would I still be me - the short answer is yes and the longer answer is that I would probably be happier.  All the stories in my life trigger memories, some of which are traumatic, painful and distressing.  There are also happier stories and remembering those brings laughter and smiles, but without any of the stories I could possibly approach every new event cleanly without the need to re-interpret based on the past and the impact the pat has on the present.  Without the stories I could be here and now occasionally.
How liberating would that be? For me the challenge is to live without the need to create even more stories, without the drama that storytelling holds.  Truthfully, I am quite the drama queen - I know this does not surprise anyone.

Now off to see my dad again - he isn't really very well at all and speaking of stories, my brother and I have already worked out 10 different scenarios about what could be wrong.  All I can do is wait for the truth of the situation to reveal itself.  As I said to my brother 'I'm a glass half-empty sort of person and you're a pretend the glass is half-full", but we're both concerned right now. I'm glad I'm here.