past lives

Sometimes the other places I've lived, the things I did, the jobs I held--they all seem so far away and unreal. Tonight I'm thinking of the Pittsburgh chapter of my life, in particular.

Those of you who've ever heard me mention my love of Pittsburgh know how deep and abiding that love goes. I think--nay, know--it's an amazing, gorgeous, magical place, one that is slowly being discovered to be what it really is: not the dirtier, industrial city of the past but a vibrant, young, and cultural center of today, mixed with lots of elements of the past that give it a strange and welcoming (to me, at least) flavor. I love it some much there.

Tonight I was at a birthday party, talking to a really nice girl who lives in New York. Usually my former NYC life is the one that strikes me as long ago and confusing--can it be that I really lived there for four years, taking subways and taxis and walking the streets as if they were my own? (I'll stop there, for I'm trying to focus on Pittsburgh right now.) I mentioned to her the time the Daiai Lama jaywalked in front of my car near Pitt in Pittsburgh's pretty Oakland neighborhood as I was trying to make my way to my grandparents' apartment. (If you've not heard this story, please ask me to tell it. I like to tell it.)

Four years and a week or two ago is when I got my job at The Coffee Tree Roasters in Squirrel Hill. Not long after getting the job, the weather got much colder than I ever remembered New York being. It was frequently snowy and icy outside, and I had to drive to work in the morning to open the store at 5:30. Could it be that I really did that several days a week? It seem so unlikely now.

This evening I got home from downtown around midnight. After the aforementioned birthday party, I headed to the Max Canada to meet up with my friend Laurie, whom I've known since birth. (Well, her birth, not mine, as I began my life a few months before she began hers.) She and her husband were in town for the game. Jim was working, and Denise and Daniel were at the bar, too, so that was a pleasant surprise--all these people I loved from various stages in my life, all in one place. I loved it. While taking to Laurie, Pittsburgh came up again.

So it was a little after midnight that I clicked on the Firefox icon and decided to check email and such. No reason, as I'm sure reading a book would be much more pleasurable right now. But I found myself looking at the pages of people I worked with when I lived in Pittsburgh, friends of mine from the coffee shop that I started relationships with that never got to go very far because I moved the February after I started the job. (I will mention that one guy and I still keep in touch sporadically and I hung out with him this summer--Jim's friend's fiancee is a friend of his, too, oddly enough, so we all had a fun get-together at a hole-in-the-wall ping pong bar.)

My GHP crew came to visit me when I lived in Pittsburgh, and of course my relatives were there since they live in the suburbs. But no one in Athens has any real reference point for my life in Pittsburgh. I don't mention the good ol' times too often (apart from talking too much about bowling at Arsenal Lanes in Lawrenceville--college night meant 50-cent games and 50-cent drafts!) and don't talk to my old friends from the 'Burgh other than the darling Sarah Beth Shapiro, who's sort of transcended the Pittsburgh category by now since we've hung out in other states.

Anywho. I miss Pittsburgh. I think I could move back. I don't know if I will, but I could. My life there was somewhat solitary, definitely cold and icy, and full of fun acquaintances and lots of family gatherings. I really miss it sometimes, especially as I bundle up in ol' puffers, my burgundy winter coat, and get ready to go into temperatures that are about 40 degrees warmer than my average Pittsburgh morning.