We flipped our house and flapped our wings, heading to Savannah, Georgia for a spell and a spell it was. This magical, fecund, fraught city holds the sway of a thousand Spanish moss, lazily undulating under massive, sturdy oaks, nodding to graves, marked and hidden from the 1700's and 1800's.
The cobblestone streets, the pouting azaleas and the luscious-lipped camellias gather around nymphs, Botticelli-like maidens, boars and vined fountains, eagerly listening to tales from afar.
This is no ordinary American city. This is the manage-trois-birth-child of Creole, French and English colonizers, of Southern living, hospitality and bloodshed. Named after the Native American Indian tribe, Savana, its river of the same namesake, unloaded hundreds of slaves and catapulted its cotton industry. I was surprised, that unlike, say, Virginia, its confederate statues stand tall and proud in many squares and parks, nary a paint spilled on any.
Clad in Christmas gold and red, its gas lamps flickering, strewn among Victorian marvels, the hoofs of carriage-drawn horses mute the history trampled beneath. This city makes you fall in love with heartbreak and beauty, like an old lovers I've had.
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| St. John the Baptiste Church |
But what is it about this place or any others I seek? Why do I have this insatiable need to go or leave or explore or escape? Is it simply my nature or the fact that home was never a sanctuary or that wandering is in my people's DNA or my voracious appetite for newness, for more? Do others have this affliction or compass? I hear from many about their longing to roam, to be free yet most don't. Many cannot even begin to imagine leaving their jobs, their steadfast lives, their familiar routines and unquestioned expectations.
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| Forsyth Park, Savannah, GA |
Maybe it's a generational thing. Although I was born in 1966, baby boomers' values have shaped me. I am probably a kibbutznick hippie who doesn't wear makeup, showers less often than most in the US, believes in self-sustaining gardens and shared resources and has a deep aversion to buying large houses, SUVs, newest electronic gadgets, etc. I love real books with pages and heft, real honest-to-goodness phone calls and getting the oh-so-rare and elusive letter.
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| The Fountain, Forsyth Park |
Maybe I keep wondering to see how people engage, what have they figured out that's more fulfilling or maybe standing on the edge of a sunset I finally feel tethered to the gateway of the most direct contact with God, this Universe, feeling alive and momentarily connected.
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| Monterey Square, Savannah |
As I sit here and am grateful for this tool on which I write (believe me, if I had a pen, you wouldn't have been able to decipher my writing, nor would I have been able to reach as many,) I am surrounded by long bearded oaks, fanned by Sawtooth palms, the scent of fire in my hair, I watch the sun gently kissing, waking all the groggy elements and wonder what do you wish for the New Year?
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| Colonial Park Cemetery |
If you really could dream big without duties or judgement, what would drive you past your fears? How would you dare to be bigger, not just fine? What untruths would you be willing to confront about what you were taught in order to discover your authentic self, desires, longings?
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| Mickve Israel Synagogue |
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