I’ve been living in Philadelphia for six months now.
After six years of living in a utopia bubble, my wife and I moved from Portland, Oregon so she could go to graduate school at UPenn. Ivy league, social work, full ride. Of course you leave / go. She’s been learning about mass incarceration, race and gender inequality, and interning as a transitional counselor for soon to be released inmates. We are an interracial couple, married for one year, have been with each other for ten.
Privilege has come up often. In our time together, I have learned a lot about mine. But not as much as I have learned about it than in the past six months living in West Philly.
Privilege has come up often. In our time together, I have learned a lot about mine. But not as much as I have learned about it than in the past six months living in West Philly.
I didn't grow up in a household that talked about religion, politics or race. We ate dinner together every night and mom, sister and I went to church every Sunday morning. Dad stayed home, we never talked about it. These subjects were considered impolite I supposed. We were kept safe and then we watched TV in the evenings. Around ten years old I started drawing cartoons and making ceramic animal sculptures delving into my own fantasy world, filling in the gaps of my ignorance about the world.
The first time I was introduced to the idea of privilege, the word, the meaning, was during my first art critique in graduate school. It happened so fast, in the middle of confusion, art history and theory. At one moment we were talking about holes in ceramic work and why mine didn’t have any, and then the next moment the professor was saying he wanted everything I had always had as a child. I said I wanted what he had, I felt so empty and naive at that moment. It all ended abruptly and the group moved onto the next students work.
Philadelphia is the biggest city either of us has ever lived in. We found our place on Craigslist from Portland, took a FaceTime tour with our iPhones. We asked about the neighborhood and she was honest, Philly is divided block to block. It was close to the school for my wife and a landing place for us. We took it and signed the lease contract from a Fedex Kinko’s. Nine days driving and we pulled in front of our apartment in West Philly. One of the first things our new landlord said, upon meeting in real life, was don’t walk anymore north or west from our new apartment, ours was the last block. We are on the edge. Safe for others but not me, it’s not my culture, I don’t fit in here and I’m not welcomed. I am an uninvited guest.
We’ve driven around and can see why. Abandonment, undefined masses, rubble and debris, black windowless structures, and garbage slowly fills the streets the farther you drive in either of those directions. My co-worker said once when he was growing up that his mom wouldn’t let him go past 40th. We live on 50th and I haven’t walked past 52nd, and I only do that if I need to catch the train, but usually walk the opposite direction to 46th for the same reason, it feels safer. The ten blocks past University City, from 40th to 50th, are a mix of housing for home owners, students and low income renters, and abandoned lots and buildings, the contrast from block to block, even from building to building is jarring. I stay in my apartment most of the time, usually only going out side to walk the dog or go to work.
I have an upbringing in building, making and maintaining things, objects. I place a high value on material and space. They are precious to me, I identify with them. Material is potential, expression, thinking with my hands, exercising my imagination, and has always helped me to understand the world. Material lies around in mounds and as discarded waste in empty lots where buildings once stood in West Philly. Broken cement chunks and bricks randomly thrown in heaps in the allies. It’s a chaotic mess, I have to watch where I step. There are whole abandoned lots in my neighborhood that could fit every tiny shitty apartment I’ve every lived in. Philadelphia is old, one of the oldest cities in the United States, layers upon layers of rebuilding and change. I know, but still vastly different from Portland.
I did not know how much organization and maintenance played into feelings of safety and beauty until I moved here. I keep thinking that all this potential is lost when I walk outside. I think, if this material was maintained, it could still be what it was intended for when it was originally constructed, or, after its demolition, it could be recycled and made into something new. And this is when I start to be aware of my privilege.
Make. Build. Maintain. New. These are the ideals of my culture, I was afforded to think in this linear fashion. Some call this progress, but now I'm learning that maybe it is the foundation of privilege. It was my upbringing. I had the time, money, material, and space, the resources to create. I had abundance and didn't know it, didn't know it truly on a level of comprehension that was specific to my learning language, until now, seeing, being, and living here in this neighborhood.
I don't live in a place that can afford the criteria for life that I had / have. I’m having a very hard time understanding that. I'm left wondering who made this place, who left this junk here, what happened here, how did it happen and how come no one seems to care? Who would choose to live like this? As I did when I was a child, I am filling in the gaps of my ignorance with fantasy explanations. Goblins must have constructed these surroundings and I am a goblin for thinking that as well. I feel like shit, no one chooses to live like this, they have to, and they have for some time now, this is and has always been life. I am the unwelcome guest and they have never been to, or will probably never go to an overly well manicured place such as Portland, Oregon.
In Oregon I was poor, as I am now, but there I could still fake like I wasn’t. And before Oregon, living outside of Detroit, I was poor too, but we just called it young, stupid and searching. Now, here in Philadelphia, the curtain is raised, I am in my late thirties and for the first time in my life I am living in a place that fits my financial situation. It’s ugly, depressing and heartbreaking. Everyday I walk the dog trying to become more accustomed to it all, but find a quick reason to return back to my apartment, hiding in my fantasy world, drawing and making dumb ceramic sculptures, furiously processing these feeling in starts and fits, scratches and smashes.
Only recently, after six months living in West Philly, have I been able to rest with it all. My privilege is mine and I am thankful for that, from an early age I learned a way to cope with change and stress and loss. But my fantasy world has been a blessing as well as a hinderance, and I see that now, I am hyper aware of my place and surrounding. I am a humbled guest in the neighborhood, some people say hello now, and some don’t.
