Midnight Plane to Georgia

Spontaneity is like that old fling that drunk dials once in a while to get sum’, and you know it’s probably not the best move to cross town at 1 in the morning but you’re already self-loathing for finishing that pint of B&J and you DID just buy that new sexy thang, tag still attached. So you shave those legs and go for that high, telling yourself that life is short and you’ll worry about the costs (financial, emotional, psychological) at a later date. Live a little, amiright?!

So I booked a last minute trip to Georgia over the weekend. Never a great idea because a middle seat on a redeye can actually cause mental illness, but the idea of waking up to barbeque pulled pork and that sweet southern twang was enough to keep me sane for the 3 hour time zone change.

The south is an animal I’ve had limited interaction with, especially as an adult. My grandma lives in Arkansas and so I used to visit a fair amount, dreading the two-hour hilly drive from Little Rock to Hot Springs that always involved severe nausea. When we’d finally arrive, I’d get out of the car, give fragile Grandma Ann a gentle hug and then run (give or take a stop to the bathroom) to my favorite spot in the house… the downstairs ballroom. Grandpa Dick, who passed way too soon, had built a large dance floor with a full wall mirror and bar because more than anything my grandmother loved to dance. I have vague memories of watching her waltz around in a bright red skirt that matched her bright red hair. She’d twirl and the skirt would flair up, and I would giggle each time I caught a glimpse of her underpants. I was like 6, okay. No one had any idea that 15 years later I’d be the one ballroom dancing in college, but I guess we never know what goes around and comes around until it does.

Just outside the dance room is a porch leading around the house, and my grandparents would take my brother and I out there in the mornings to put peanut butter in the birdfeeder. Then we’d eat our oatmeal and wait for the hummingbirds. The house rests on the top of a hill with a view out back that’s perfectly picturesque, an endless grove of trees rising and falling, painting the landscape with the greenest of green. I’ve always been impatient but the birds would eventually come, and if we stayed quiet enough we could hear their little wings flapping a million miles a minute as their beaks kissed the feeder. I enjoyed that, killing myself to stand completely still, only to watch and listen. At night we’d go to the Shack, a local diner a few miles away that to this day makes the best banana milkshake I’ve ever had. I never noticed that my mother and brother and I were the only Asians in town and that we didn’t discuss things like politics and religion because we would be in contention with literally everyone around us. All I knew was that finishing the entire shake meant an upset stomach, but that “deal with the costs later” mentality is innate and so I’d do it every time.

on nom nom nom nom!

Fast forward two decades and this time I’m in Georgia on a two-hour ride from Atlanta to Columbus, equally gorgeous and green and hilly and nauseating as the trip to Grandma Ann. Only now as an adult, post-socialist Europe and identifying as anti-“people-who-think-having-more-guns-will-save-more-lives,” I can’t help feeling irked by all the things around me that go against my ideologies. Billboards for gun sales. Baptist churches with borderline racist mantras. Trucks that murder the environment. Not that these observations kept me from gorging myself on sweet tea, barbeque brisket, baked beans, and mac & cheese all for less than a parking spot in LA. Followed by stacks of French toast, grits, and deep-fried anything and everything the following morning. Everyone I interacted with was extremely friendly and respectfully listened as I pulled a Reese Witherspoon and asked questions in a fake Southern drawl of my own. I guess two days really isn’t enough time to make any fixed opinions about a place, though I could go on for hours about that chocolate chess pie. 

I had an afternoon to do nothing/something, and so I looked up hot spots in the vicinity and took off towards Providence Canyon State Park, this depot of red canyons and trails that look nothing like the rest of Georgia’s marshland terrain. I know my parents will tsk tsk at the idea of me driving to some random place all by my lonesome. I’d traveled alone plenty of times before but I always took public transportation, surrounded by other people, with the destination marked on the ticket in hand (and often someone waiting for me at the other end). But the independence I felt in the driver’s seat, where I could choose the speed, the music, the turns on nobody's agenda but my own… maybe that was the “American Spirit” I’d been missing for so long.

Don't be a victim!

Often times I was the only car on the highway, and so yeah, I put the pedal to the metal and yeah, it felt pretty great. I started with the windows rolled down and listened to classic rock and felt like a BAD ASS but it got way too windy real quick so I toned it down. I even tried a little country music, switching stations for every Baptist church I passed (which was more than many) and felt alright, up until I passed an abandoned truck on the side of the road and wondered, “well what the hell happened to that guy?” Then my thoughts turned to True Detective and In Cold Blood and bears in general and I suddenly became hyper aware of my aloneness. Less like the liberation I felt starting out and more like a security concern. Maybe driving and hiking by myself in a place I have no idea about isn’t the greatest idea. But the girl in Wild did it, and I could definitely sprint faster than her… right?

Long story short, I didn’t get kidnapped or murdered. I actually had a super nice hike and met an older couple from Tennessee who I bet if I had asked would not agree with my views on abortion. But they did tell me about the one friend they had from Chicago who once sold tye-die skirts in Florida, who may or may not still be living but seemed to do well for herself. I listened and asked questions, not caring so much about the answers but appreciating their attempt to find common ground. I mean, we were literally standing on the same ground, this earthy red dirt smack dab in the middle of all this green, and so that in itself connected me with these strangers who, given a different context, I might have tried to avoid.

What state am I in again?

I eventually moved on ahead to burn off the brisket, taking a few more trails before heading back up north to ATL. I arrived early enough to waste time riding the airport subway from terminal to terminal, because that’s how desperately I miss being in Europe. My plane back home was filled with men in suits who’d been to Atlanta on business, who likely had no idea (or cared) that there were canyons in Georgia. I know about them, about the drive down there, about the random tye-dye vending lady from Chicago who may or may not be dead. All trivial facts that, like most things, will soon be forgotten. But who knows, maybe that couple will meet a Californian and recount about a girl they met in LA who hasn’t sold screenplays and may or may not be dead, but seemed to do well for herself. I’m sure somebody out there (maybe that dude who abandoned his truck) could relate to that. Things have a funny way of coming back around again.