I Hear That Lonesome Whistle

Last night my bargaining paid off and I had absolutely no new work to complete for class today. I spent a few hours starting some review work (more bargaining) and spent the rest of the night relaxing.

After going out to dinner, Brandon and I came home and watched "Hustle and Flow." I hadn't seen the movie since it came out, and really enjoyed it the second time. From the reaction of one of my fellow students today (an amused laugh, on par with what you might expect if I had said I had watched "The Fast and the Furious") when I mentioned I had watched the movie last night, I assume that to the rest of the country it is a decent, entertaining genre film.

To someone from Memphis, love it or hate it, the film carries much more weight. I remember the fury in Wendi Thomas' response when it first came out, blasting it for how it represented Memphis to the rest of the world. And later, when she and Brewer met and talked, it was practically treated as a summit between diplomats, two of the major voices representing Memphis to the world.

I stand on the love-it side of the fence. I think the film peers hard and long into the despair that many people want to gloss over and finds a fairy tale of hope. I could delve into this more. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would spend plenty of time discussing or arguing this with me. (Oh, how I miss you Drinking Liberally of Memphis). But it isn't what I really wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the train.

Of course, it was fun, watching the movie, to see Memphis in the background. It was fun to see Vance Grocery, the tiniest flash of Beale Street, quite a bit of Lamar and Brooks. It was fun to speculate whether or not the church was Calvary and to reminisce about the Poplar Lounge. But the movie didn't make me miss Memphis too much until I heard the train.

Early in the movie, during a transition, the sound of the train rolled across the scene and punched me in the gut.

When I moved to Dallas, I the landscape felt lonely to me in a way Chicago never had. I couldn't pin it down until I came home to visit in the spring. I missed the trees on the horizon. It felt lonely without them.

In Durham, there is no loneliness for lack of trees. The trees surround the city in a bear-hug of greens and (right now) ambers and reds. Durham has the normal sounds of small city, but it lacks the bass notes of Memphis, the trains, the airplanes, the low rumbling background. Memphis has wrapped itself around the train and laid itself under the FedEx flight path and incorporated it, often without even noticing, into every aspect of life. I miss the boxcar graffiti each morning taking Southern Ave to work, the way a long train in East Memphis equalizes everyone traveling the roads, the way my mind would listen to the sound distant in the background of my evening.