I’m an imported New Yorker, from Upstate, and not a Downstater proper.

Northern NJ is where my wife was raised, therefore I feel connected through
marriage. We used to go to NJ for Thanksgiving, and I would always get lost.
My pacifist long-hair stoneman for one day sat for the traditional meal across
from the Navy officer, ballistic physicist, and dressage instructor. New
Jersey, as with my wife, remains an undecoded message. NJ is where I get in
trouble for spanking unruly children to prevent them from strangling me from
behind with their hula hoops. NJ is where years ago I innocently asked a park
superintendent at Liberty Park if we could use a fire hydrant for cleaning the
Guastavino tile ceiling of the Great Hall at Ellis Island, and found myself
run out of the park. I think for lack of water we did not get the job. NJ is
where American poets often stay, they rarely leave except for brief sessions,
which speaks well of something. Then again, some poets flee, run all over the
place, put their mothers in nut houses, and never return. NJ is where I think
my Dodge Minivan went after it was stolen in Brooklyn. NJ is where you have to
put on a mechanic’s lien before you start a job, not after. NJ is the place
where I have a project that never ends but as well never begins, yet sometimes
we get paid. NJ is a governance full of small towns with invisible boundaries,
a water falls and a different set of rules for every mile. NJ is the long
stretch of confusion between either Delaware Water Gap or Baltimore, whichever
comes first. NJ is where the family spent 14 hours sitting in the broken Audi
at the Hopatcong highway garage on a Memorial Day weekend. NJ is another place
where George Washington sat around waiting for food. NJ is a good place to
purchase cowboy boots, canoes and camping gear. NJ is always being able to
call into the office the excuse that you are incredibly lost, when you are
actually stopped at a hotdog stand reading the last ten pages of a mystery. NJ
is where weird drivers come from who do not know how to maneuver in NYC. NJ is
where NY drivers have not a prayer of survival. NJ is where astronauts and
hippies learn cosmic orientation. NJ is the one place you do not want to be a
black revolutionary carrying a bomb while cruising the Turnpike. NJ has the
black outline of the Pulaski Skyway, where it feels like soaring over the
wetlands, even in an old Honda Civic. The problem with NJ, as my wife keeps
insisting, is that when you get up in the morning and move toward civilization
the blinding sun is in your eyes.


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