I've been struggling with writer's block (what's new???)... so in the interest of time and necessity I'm going to do a "freewrite" about Savannah because I've been meaning to write this entry for waaaaay too long and I play editor and anal retentive grammar queen too frequently.
Savannah is...
Before I moved here: a memory of my father (hence, the title, but never made the connection until I decided to settle here), a blonde sorority girl with hippie-ish parents, the plains of Africa, the Antebellum South, old $$, "Forrest Gump," "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," haunted mansions, a dark, twisted past with decadent, languorous characters.
Then: my first welcome to the city--1) after driving for hours on a clear Georgia highway for miles, my car enters into a convoluted freeway system suddenly that then opens into small city streets draped with the grey tendrils of Spanish Moss hanging off of Live Oaks and trees that crowd my vision and cast me into a spell of romance and epiphany and recognition. I write on my Facebook page: OMG... I've been fucked and died and gone to heaven... 2) I pull into the driveway of Fitz's mother's house--his sexy beast of a beat-up, effed-up, open-topped Jeep kind of car thing next to me. I have to violate the used, crispy, sun-drenched skins of her seats to find the key to his mother's house that he as left hidden in the folds of his car; 3) When Fitz situates me after asking him, "Where am I?" he pulls out a Moleskin-like notebook and pen that I know he's tried out many times for its flow and precision and draws a map. Then he says to me, "Your house is here...." noncommittal, without reservation or pretense and he continues to make little sketches and lines of what is what and where is where, but I take note and think, "I would never do that. If I had a friend staying at my mother's house I would never refer to it as 'Your House.'" I think I am somewhere else. I am somewhere good.
Now: I am in the "Hostess City of the South"--at every turn I've made, from Fitz's mom's house to looking for an apartment to finding an apartment and getting my apartment broken into to deciding to stay despite not having a computer or a job, I have been met by others with kindness, true generosity and genuine hospitality, the kind that comes with no expectation of return favor or debt; people spend time together here--friends pop by at a moment's notice and evenings are spent talking on the porch; though crime is rampant, it is also as random as any other city (the robbery at my house was truly a flook), and despite the insinuation of danger (dark alleys, questionable characters roaming the streets at night, violence that occurs closer than one would like because neighborhoods, the poor and the wealthy, exist side by side), at its precipice, there is also an equal amount of implied safety and discovery that can only be experienced by straddling its fence; my friend, Daphne, came to visit from LA and we jumped the fence together one night--wandering into a Greek Revival "haunted mansion" at 2:00am led by a severely intoxicated doltish guy who said his friend lived there, Hermes, a waifish young man in a newsboy cap and patched trousers, looking straight out of a 1920s film, took us on a tour of the historic home built in the 1830s, General Sherman and Robert E. Lee among its visitors. Hermes, a self-proclaimed trainhopper, and I sat and talked over cheap wine and rolled cigarettes until the sun came up as we traded traveller's tales and kind of fell-in-love for a moment, but never kissed, never touched just kind of marveled at our differences and strange encounter;
the past and present is intertwined here, the Revolutionary War and Civil War as immediate and accessible as the Krispy Kreme or Five Guys Burgers & Fries; the foodies that are slowly infiltrating this poorly-represented food destination brought to you by Paula Deen are creating wonderful neighborhood specialty stores (Form on Habersham), beer & burger bistros (Green Truck), $2 slider and taco joints (Sammy Green's), many, many upscale wine bars and restaurants, and the incomparable standard bearer of fine dining, Elizabeth on 37th (of which another blog entry shall be expressly devoted); there are coffee houses where everyone knows your name, warehouses used for intimate showings of quality independent and foreign films, artists who work everyday at their craft, my neighbor whittles and carves wood in a studio he built in his backyard (in little more than a week!), a gentle man in his 70s who resembles Popeye's crony pogo-sticked across country and took photographs of homeless people that he compiled into a beautiful, self-published book, the scores of SCAD kids, hipsters who bike the park-like streets of the Historic District on fixed gears, cruisers with cute baskets, and expensive, fully-loaded racers by day and take-over the bars at night; nothing is planned here, everything simply happens and evolves, the integrity of the city intact. My love affair with Savannah has only begun... the story to be continued...
Savannah is...
Then: my first welcome to the city--1) after driving for hours on a clear Georgia highway for miles, my car enters into a convoluted freeway system suddenly that then opens into small city streets draped with the grey tendrils of Spanish Moss hanging off of Live Oaks and trees that crowd my vision and cast me into a spell of romance and epiphany and recognition. I write on my Facebook page: OMG... I've been fucked and died and gone to heaven... 2) I pull into the driveway of Fitz's mother's house--his sexy beast of a beat-up, effed-up, open-topped Jeep kind of car thing next to me. I have to violate the used, crispy, sun-drenched skins of her seats to find the key to his mother's house that he as left hidden in the folds of his car; 3) When Fitz situates me after asking him, "Where am I?" he pulls out a Moleskin-like notebook and pen that I know he's tried out many times for its flow and precision and draws a map. Then he says to me, "Your house is here...." noncommittal, without reservation or pretense and he continues to make little sketches and lines of what is what and where is where, but I take note and think, "I would never do that. If I had a friend staying at my mother's house I would never refer to it as 'Your House.'" I think I am somewhere else. I am somewhere good.
Now: I am in the "Hostess City of the South"--at every turn I've made, from Fitz's mom's house to looking for an apartment to finding an apartment and getting my apartment broken into to deciding to stay despite not having a computer or a job, I have been met by others with kindness, true generosity and genuine hospitality, the kind that comes with no expectation of return favor or debt; people spend time together here--friends pop by at a moment's notice and evenings are spent talking on the porch; though crime is rampant, it is also as random as any other city (the robbery at my house was truly a flook), and despite the insinuation of danger (dark alleys, questionable characters roaming the streets at night, violence that occurs closer than one would like because neighborhoods, the poor and the wealthy, exist side by side), at its precipice, there is also an equal amount of implied safety and discovery that can only be experienced by straddling its fence; my friend, Daphne, came to visit from LA and we jumped the fence together one night--wandering into a Greek Revival "haunted mansion" at 2:00am led by a severely intoxicated doltish guy who said his friend lived there, Hermes, a waifish young man in a newsboy cap and patched trousers, looking straight out of a 1920s film, took us on a tour of the historic home built in the 1830s, General Sherman and Robert E. Lee among its visitors. Hermes, a self-proclaimed trainhopper, and I sat and talked over cheap wine and rolled cigarettes until the sun came up as we traded traveller's tales and kind of fell-in-love for a moment, but never kissed, never touched just kind of marveled at our differences and strange encounter; 
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