Providence Art Festival

A few weeks ago, I attended the Providence festival for the arts. They closed down Kennedy Plaza, replacing all the bus stops on nearby streets, to the chagrin of many travelers. There were several parts to this festival: a street chalk art competition, a street of unique food trucks, stages set up for many different cultural art performances, and more. I was amazed at the scale of this festival, the city's dedication to it (changing the bus routes!), and the huge turnout.

The crowds grew larger as the night progressed. We started at the chalk art festival, where different city high schools or teams competed and passersby bought a coin for whatever piece they wanted to win. Whoever got the most pieces was the winner - my friend's sister was representing her high school with a fantastically vibrant drawing of a pigeon, which we were happy to vote for. As an artist, I had fun wandering around this area and marveling at the various levels of skill and creativity involved in each drawing.

At the beginning of the evening, the food truck area was not too crowded, but within a couple hours the place was packed. And not only for the food, which was all unique and varied, but the nearby music shows. There was an interesting-looking performance truck set up for something called "Squonk opera," what looked like a grunge construction-themed musical act. It was as loud and obnoxious as it sounds, so we only hung around there for a few minutes. More pleasing to the ears were the cultural music performances going on atop a stage set up in Kennedy Plaza, right where the bus to URI usually stops. We saw a band called Zili Misik, an all-female African/Caribbean/Soul fusion band. This we stayed for - the music and the performers had tons of personality! By now the crowds were getting larger, and we were lucky to be short enough to stand in front of them. They weren't bothersome, though - instead they inspired a sense of communal appreciation for everything going on around us. As we marveled at the music, we saw other people around us doing the same.

After this we wandered pretty aimlessly, and the crowds became a problem. There was a break dancing show going on and a solid ring of onlookers surrounding it. We even tried standing on a bench in the background to see, but that too was futile. The food truck area, which was between two major areas of the festival, was now so congested with people that it was quite an ordeal to try to cross. We ended up eating at the nearby Providence Place Mall, because there was no way we were going to wait in a huge line for one of the food trucks, delicious though they may be, and then have to find a not-packed place to enjoy our food. 

Finally, the journey home. Droves of confused URI students slowly filed to the alternate bus stop, and to top it off, the bus was over twenty minutes late, so a collective sense of unease was steadily infecting us all. Cruelly, another bus pulled up and decided to park just shy of our bus stop, and we all knew the URI bus would have to stop either behind or in front of that one. All wanted a chance to get a seat, but none knew which would be the best place to stand. The URI bus ended up stopping many feet down the street, and so an entire crowd of students sprinted down the road and sidewalk to get there. A line never really formed, but instead a mass of people tried stuffing themselves into the bus doors. I'm lucky my roommate lives in Providence and uses the buses often - she pushed her way to the front and got us a row of seats, so that when I finally boarded, 10 minutes later, I had a place to sit. The day was fun, but I was relieved to get off that bus and into my not-crowded room.

Wasted Day in New York City

What a week - and it's not even done. This morning, my brother got married in Central Park. The day went beautifully; it was more perfect than any of us could have thought possible. Therefore, October 11 is a story for another day, and I'd instead like to write about the day before that, Wednesday. After about five hours of sleep, my parents and I boarded a train into Grand Central Station. I have seen it many times before, so we rushed through and got to check into our hotel at 1PM, even though we left at 9 that morning.

My dad had a hopeful enthusiasm for his own plans that slowly deteriorated as it got later. He wanted to walk around the streets and go into whatever place interested him instead of hitting the tourist sites, but it was the day before my brother's wedding and his fiance's parents were driving into the city from Wisconsin. We meant to only stop in to say hi before breaking off to indulge in our own plans, but were roped into having lunch with everyone. My brother was intent on taking us to P.J. Clarke's, citing little facts like how Nat King Cole proposed there and it serves Buddy Holly's favorite cheeseburger (if I'm remembering these correctly). Of course he only had a general idea of where it was, so it took us over a half hour of wandering the streets after a taxi ride, with his fiance's mother having a bad knee, to find it. Though the food was good, it was late in the afternoon by then, and it seemed like everyone's own plans had gone a bit awry.

The mood was rather low after that, and not helped by the fact that we wasted a bit more time sorting out hotel issues. It was past 5 by the time we finally split off and worked out the subway to get to Chinatown. My dad had earlier regaled me with tales of Chinatown in the 70's, where he happened inside a door which led to a hidden bazaar, which sounded too cool to be true to me.

Turns out, it was. Perhaps we were looking in the wrong place, but as the sun began to set we entered into Chinatown and were met with a lot of jewelry shops, tourist stores, and restaurants (which at the time was unhelpful, since we were still full from the late lunch). Every place seemed the same. There were kitschy, tacky tourist shops; restaurants (some of which were famous, making us more regretful of lunch); tea rooms (which seemed cool, but I'm not a fan of tea); foot massage parlors (a surprising amount); and half-outdoor shops selling natural herbs and a variety of dried things, which all had the same distinctive, strange smell I could not place.

While it was interesting and certainly seemed like a foreign pocket in the middle of NYC, I could only feel exhausted and vaguely disappointed by its lack of variety and authenticity. I might be singing a different tune if we went in with an empty stomach. We soon gave up and, after becoming a bit lost, made our way back to the hotel. At that point, which was pathetically only 7pm, I had to dedicate myself to homework.

So in summation, I spent a day in New York wasting time getting lost and dealing with hotel crap, wandering disappointed around Chinatown, and doing homework. The punchline is that exhausted as I was by then (I guess I have no stamina), I think I only got one or two hours of sleep when I resigned myself to bed. The next morning I had to be up by 6AM to prepare for the wedding, and that day I knew real exhaustion. Since that day is still today, I am currently writing this in a very sleep-deprived state. However, I'm pretty proud of myself for surviving, and considering how disappointing yesterday was, today was a blast. More on that is SURE to come!

Home

I've moved around quite a bit in my lifetime. Before the age of 10 I'd lived in five different houses and three different states before my family finally settled down. I was never very torn up about moving when I was younger, and I always saw it as a fun road trip and a new place to make my own. Though all these places have their memories, the one that felt most like home was not even my home; it was my grandparents' farmhouse in Kentucky.

It's a large, rustic looking house (on the outside), accessed via a long wooded gravel road. In the center of their circular driveway is a massive evergreen almost as tall as the house itself; my mother told me it was an old Christmas tree they planted when she was younger. A field stretches between my grandparents' house and the neighbors', and coming back here is what always feels most like a homecoming. In the evenings it used to fill with lightning bugs (fireflies to some of you) and you could catch them almost effortlessly; these days, for some reason, you'll be lucky if you spot more than one glow. Farther back on the property, past a wooded path and a peach tree, my grandpa has a chicken coop, and even further still a garden with everything from blueberries to pumpkins. I remember everything as bright and sunny and green, all the time. To a five year old, this place was paradise.

I'm not very close to my extended family up here in Connecticut, so it's a shame I live so far from my mother's side in Kentucky. But every once in a while we'll have the money to drive down and visit, and my grandparents' house remains about the same, even if the people in it change. My aunt and her two kids now occupy it as well, and because my mother had seven other siblings, aunts and uncles and cousins are constantly coming and going. I can only imagine what it feels like for my relatives who grew up in this house or at least close enough to visit often, when even I still associate it with home.

My mother in her wedding dress in front of the tree, much smaller then; A family reunion in front of the house in the 80's.