Being a person who celebrates herself in the city’s center the good majority of the time, I thoroughly wear the title of “City Slicker” with overweening pride. Usually, like most self-proclaimed street cats that are customarily caffeinated hourly, I close my eyes and appreciate the sound of the hustle and bustle every
day. Open your eyes and look left to see angst-filled artists scratching for muses, suits chasing profitable business opportunities that screech to take off every 15 minutes like packed express buses. Look right and see timorous tourists snapping pictures of dated attractions I’ve grown to overlook. Walk forward into the hazy smell of tires dutifully burning to whatever destination the hour demands of them, zipping right past the street criers, corner dwellers and subway surfers all the while sitting there to witness it in its grimy smoke-screen splendor.
Like caffeine, I crave deeply to be where the people are. I yearn to be where big things are happening and grand skyscraping ideas are being sculpted to life … the need to be seen, to be amongst a crowd and motivated to create. To live in a fast-paced, predictably unnerving set-up for my soul to nourish and grow from each exciting/interesting experience the city gives me. I especially need to be where I am ever-changing and forced to re-evaluate my morals, standpoints and general life direction, which is something the ending of the season in the stone-cooled city will do for you.
It seemed for the last few months I’d begun to feel a silencing tightness in my throat, an unsettling cramp in my stomach and a sad heaviness in my heart. I couldn’t help the growing hatred for metropolitan Philadelphia, despite its constant praise for being such a progressive city. Gays were and are being senselessly beaten and the law’s ambivalent reaction makes me feel devalued by society. Radically outright-racist articles posted in popular news columns and the reminder of the never-ending “Us Against Them” police-brutality battle in light of the Mike Brown case was being shoved in my face. Floating through projects wondering, Does your talent even mean anything in the end? Are you even a real adult? How much does your phone cost? That face scraping-the-sidewalk feeling … That no matter what I did, these cold, stone, unfeeling buildings were like the people who worked and inhabited them: Constructed to live uniformly, appearing of a wealthy image worth something on the outside. Never conducted to feel and celebrate difference, but rather judge it harshly and destroy every essence of it.
I am more than my fluid spectrum of sexuality, my seasonal changing brown skin tone and career-bracket income. So how does any freelancing artist-type react to the pressures of the daily social struggle to be alive in this turmoil of the work world? Escape. When a well-known artist spoke to me about getting away to a friend’s wedding reception out in the unknown country (Landisburg, Pa.), I had no idea I’d be introduced to the brazen edifice of myself and see how closed-minded, shut off and unfeeling I’d become, as well as discovering a diamond-in-the-rough, rabbit-hole hippie commune right here in Pennsylvania.
So the morning of Sept. 14, we drove three cranky hours through a somewhat “all-American” scenic, funky farmland decorated in dreary skies. Finally, we arrived to our destination, with horse shoes and blue ribbons galore: East Coast Gold Cup. A quick Google search revealed that this was an off-the-map, uncharted territory. No records anywhere. Strange and exciting enough, we pulled up to what appeared to be a type of country club set up for the wedding reception. With my eyebrows raised (very few things raise my eyebrows), I quickly became stand-offish of this atmosphere; being ever-conscious of my skin color and sometimes boyish appearance, I assumed “these people” would react to “us folk” a certain way that history has replayed again endlessly. From the moment I stepped my rain boots into the mud trail outside the safety of the car, I was splashed in the face with 10 monumental moments of self-evaluation.
After leaving the classic outhouse with a splotch of mud on my favorite pants, I immediately morphed into the pissy pessimist, sizing up every person I saw. From labeling them bearded, plaid-shirt country types and them labeling me hipster, blue eyes avoided mine and we all kept our distance. My friend was given the duty of photographer, thus leaving me alone in this unknown world. The more I sat at the picnic table alone with only my 14-percent-charged cell, I observed no one here who resembled me. In contrast, when introduced to the mother of the bride, her new husband and family, I was greeted with a warm hello and smile, a few head nods, a very generous open bar and a buffet. OK, so no one was an alien and everyone was super down-to-earth. I realized our faulty human eyes only saw the face value of each other, difference. Immediately I became humbled and realized what a fool I’d been and lowered my guard. As a gender-bent queer, I fight to keep labels on clothes and containers, not people. Another puddle splashed on me.
Wiping my eyes I realized, OK, so every time I go somewhere with a friend, I won’t have the same experience as them. Got it, universe. Suddenly a man walked up to me and said, “You need to get rid of that” talking about my technology crutch. I wasn’t going with the flow, so wrapped up in what was happening in the city that didn’t miss me that I wasn’t giving this experience a chance. So, like any artist on an adventure, I began to scratch the surface to get my nails dirty. I began to socialize. Music is and always has been universal; that saying will always ring true. Sitting in the kitchen, I found myself among what appeared to be a group of queer folk learning how to tie a bow tie from a lovely lady boy of course. Thinking they were the people I’d spend the rest of my night with, I never expected to hear the band play that familiar Red Hot Chili Peppers guitar lick that caused me to run out of my seat and jump into the mosh pit of men hoe-downing and having the time of their lives, each of us screaming the lyrics from our adolescent experience with vigor. We were all so alive in this moment. Color, age, technology crutches, all forgotten. Our baggage and stress-filled situations outside of this instant all disappeared.
Stomping in the dirt, I realized that most things that are utterly amazing are concealed and only a few know about them. When I started digging for the details on this place and where it came from, I bumped into a woman named Cheryl who revealed she was the wife of Jeff Joyce, who started this whole community 40 years ago on a mission to celebrate positivity, connect in sprit and vibe as a tribe. Everyone knew each other, and violence of any kind was banned. To belong and be involved, you had to work in the kitchen on three work holidays in exchange for being allowed into this world. Great food, live music from a wicked band named Cabin Fever, hospitable, interesting people — Pagan Priest, cooks, crafts women, carpenters and musicians — and the great outdoors. These people were simply beautiful, the serenity of people out of touch with what’s going on in the media but rather what they could construct from the ground up and use their hands, spirits and minds, all in unison.
Wrapping the portion of our night up, my friend and I delved into the depths of the forest to hunt out our tent, graciously provided and put up by the newlyweds. Being amongst masses of trees moved me. Understanding that everything around me was alive, in a different way that I am, and had lived here all of their lives from the ground up, literally was the most grounding idea to absorb. To these living beings, the plants, small animals and insects, what I knew to be life and making a name for myself was nothing to them, unimpressive. This made me realize, life is not all about chasing a dollar for your brand, or having the most movie-star hair — but experiencing things that nourish your soul and give you windows into other worlds so your view and who you reach is much larger. Closing my eyes, and listening to the power in the sound of the stream traveling to make its way past my tent, the birds and insects humming in a harmonious tune where I lay my head soothed every ache in my heart and at the same time scared me, that I couldn’t see them but could feel their presence silently demanding attention. Everything was all right here. I realized why I felt so in awe of this place. My restless spirit for once felt a sense of belonging. I knew so little about these people and place, but our energy was like music — on the same wave lengths. There in that moment, I was so alive; everything around me pulsating, able to feel, be affected, grow and change.
The next morning I had to get to work and back to the city and its built-from-the-cement-up reality. Crawling out of the rabbit hole after an adventure was never fun. So to ease the disappointment, a few of the guys I mosh-pitted with the previous night and I played horse shoes, yet another first for me. The goal of the morning: throwing rings to hit a pole in silence nipped the night in the bud. I never got my horse shoe to hit the pole, close but never quite got it. But from the night I did get a clear message: not only to continue as a human expressing herself against the current of the mainstream in the jungle of Philadelphia, but to be ever-radiating new growth and to live blossoming and rejuvenating, looking for more, the diamonds in the rough. To look for the mud of what’s real to get underneath my nails. Under the cement in each of us is a pulse to be exposed and an inner hippie looking for a place to belong. The window into your world just has to be open to what the wind blows in.
Looking to socialize and be involved in queer events and programs? Q-Spot Philadelphia is a safe space for LGBTQIA/ally youth ages 18-29 at William Way LGBT Community Center, held every fourth Saturday of the month.
Alice Wills is a freelancing actress who enjoys writing, broadcasting, taking classes at Koresh Dance School as well as being involved with Philadelphia Q Spot.