Bellport Lane by Shu Nung LeeI’ve been thinking about writing about Bellport since I started blogging in September. The whole endeavor was supposed to be this Salon Des Arts. A place where people would share their art: writing, painting, photography, videos...anything lovely....think on these things. My only willing participant (not cajoled and wheedled) was my friend Shu who sent me two of his oeuvres. His first piece, “Hong Kong Nights”, debuted at Night of Grace in October. At the time, he sent me another piece with the note:
Hey,
Got another one. save it for when you have severe writer's block.Cheers,
Shu.
It is entitled “Bellport Lane”.
I don’t necessarily have writer’s block, per se. It’s more like I have writer’s angst. Or writer’s self loathing. Or blogger’s distaste for the whole idea of blogging. I saw Julie and Julia the other day. Have you seen it? It was great: food, adoring husbands, writing, blogging, triumph...what’s not to like? One itty bitty caveat: the whole movie was set in 2002. It made me realize I had jumped on the blogging train a decade late and many dollars short. Also, Julie’s commitment to single minded self-centeredness made me wonder if I have the qualities it takes to see this thing through. Don’t get me wrong, I can be as self-centered as the next guy. It’s the single mindedness that concerns me. That and the complete lack of participation in the Salon...except for you Shu...and you Mai.
All these worries aside, I got a macbook PRO for Christmas. It says PRO right there in front me, so I guess I am going to try to live up to the billing and see this blog thing through. Armed with my PRO and Shu Nung’s “Bellport Lane”, I will write my last blog of the year 2009 about my beloved Bellport.
Bellport is the town that I grew up in. It is a lovely, sleepy harbor town located on the south shore of Long Island. The streets are lined with fluffy-tailed reed beds, honeysuckle bushes and mullberry trees. The flora alone could nourish and entertain a child between the lazy hours of a summer afternoon....I should know. Situated on the Great South Bay, the bay breeze permeates the air, leaving its salty sweet tang on the skin and soul, kissing it to God. In my memory, most the inhabitants of Bellport are sailors; sailing lessons come as naturally as learning to ride a bike(not to me). All streets lead to the bay. Every one of those streets is embellished with a gracious archway of tree arms: leaves green and cooling in the humid summers, fiery bejeweled in a myriad of impossible colors in the fall, stripped and architectural in the winter...bleak and stark enough to make a girl cry against the grey dullness of the coldest season’s cruel frown.
This crying is the part of the story that has kept me from blogging about Bellport in the first place. Every time I start to wax sentimental about the cozy little burg I grew up in, I start to remember the pieces that made me want to escape. Bellport is filled with perfect snapshots: the buttered yellow comfort of Mary Immaculate, the Catholic church on Brown’s Lane, The Bellport Ferry, shuttling eager and then exhausted and brined beachgoers back and forth across the sparkling bay, that same bay frozen and bedecked with brightly colored ice boats, Bellport Lane with a herd of runners beating a path to the finish of the Clipper Classic 5K race or packed with artists on Fourth of July and villagers admiring the local art. Check out the Bellport.com website, the Photography Gallery is spectacular. For every pile of perfect snapshots there is one torn and fray-edged picture that lies at the bottom, well worn and tear stained, regarded in the secret reaches of the night. These flawed pictures don’t have a physical subject, how do you take a picture of an idea?
While I loved the warm embrace of the Bellport’s intimacy, part of me grew to hate the confining nature of those arms that just wouldn’t let go. As I grew, I couldn’t breath; the closeness was, at times, claustrophobic. In a small town, everybody knows everybody else’s business...that can be cloying. Because of this proximity, I couldn’t help but know the town’s business too–each ugly mark, every flaw, the marring blemish on the soft fleshy underarm of the town. Everything is flawed–right? You just live with it. Until you can’t live with it any more.
So what was the flaw that made me want to run? What tipped Bellport’s scales from comfortable womb to suffocating burlap sack? What has kept me from raving about the undeniablly idyllic perfection of my hometown? Let me tell you a story. Maybe not a story so much as a series of incidents: My brother died around New Year’s 1989. This soured Bellport for me considerably. Through no fault of its own, it became the venue where I first understood the finality and wretched tearing hole of death. To my surprise, life goes on. In 1990 I met my husband-to-be at Stonybrook. I was overwhelmed with renewed life and the excitement of promise. I brought him to my hometown to introduce two of my favorite things to each other. At first they hit it off. Everybody in my family loved him...nobody doesn’t love him. I thought.
Things started to take a strange turn when I announced our engagement. Somebody asked me, “Does he need a green card?” I thought it an odd thing to say but chalked it up to the pop influence of a recent movie featuring Andi MacDowell and Gerard Depardieu called “Green Card”. Soon after that, at the restaurant I worked, a guy pulled me aside and said, “Are you sure you want to marry him?” What??? Yes, I’m sure. And by the way, I hardly even know you, why are you asking me this question? What I said was, “What?” He felt he needed to explain, all the while holding my elbow in a very firm grip. “Well, he’s just so short.” I looked up at him incredulously. Like many tall men, I gathered he was under the impression that height makes right. I was about to brush off his grip when he continued. “ And he’s so, so...so....Mexican.” To be fair, this guy was pretty drunk, as usual. The restaurant was also a local haunt for professional drinkers. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if my eyes seemed to swell and flare out of their sockets, cartoon style. I was stunned. By the way, doofus, he’s Peruvian. Newsflash genius, there are actually 20-30 countries in Latin America depending one’s definition of country and dependency. I said none of that because I was absolutely speechless and walked away dumfounded. Soon after that, a woman asked my sister, “Why would she marry one of those?” "One of those?" my sister needed clarification. "One of those spanish speaking people." I can’t tell you what my response to that was because I have made a commitment not to use profanity in this blog. While discussing this lady's comment, somebody I thought I knew very well said, “Well, to be fair, it makes a difference that he is refined and well-educated. You wouldn’t be with one who wasn’t.” With one... again, totally flabbergasted. At this point I had furled myself into a cocoon of defensive anger. Did I really live in a town full of narrow-minded bigots?
Guilt quickly added itself to the mix, making me more confused. After all, I had easily turned a blind eye to the many practices of complacent racism within the confines of my life because they never affected me. Nobody ever stopped me from hooping the dock or crabbing by night simply by virtue of my skin color. I never even thought of bigotry because it didn’t affect me. Now that commentary was being made about the man I loved, I was awakened to these not-so-subtle nuances with a jolt and I was not happy. To be sure this wasn't Bellport's only flaw but it was the last flaw. The flaw that broke the camel's back. And it made me want to escape
Twenty years later, do I think that Bellport is a particular bastion of racism? No, now that I made my escape into the wider world, I realize it probably has the same ratio of prejudice to the general populace as any group, larger or smaller. The unfortunate part of this particular revelation was that I loved Bellport so much, irrationally and from childhood. It was like discovering that a trusted and revered parent is not as noble and faithful as the fairy tale image created in a child's mind . The discovery of truth is painful because of the illusion that had previously been established. That’s why they call it disillusionment I guess.
Okay, so I said it. The truth will set me free. Now I can refocus on the nostalgic ramblings my mind has been taking for the past year or so, wandering through the sun-dappled woods, sitting on the Concord grape laden arbor in the neighbor’s yard, popping the juicy fruit out of its dark purple leather while reading a book. I am free to revisit those places I loved, having acknowledged the offending flaw. Maybe I'll even be able to go back for that visit I've been planning. Until then, I will stroll down Bellport Lane with my friend as he leads me on the journey of his painting.
