the 'burbs

yoeman farmer myth

My name is so and so, it could be your name, it probably is or isn't. I might be 21 years old or old enough to realize that everything that is tangible in my reality was once a concept from someone before me or smarter than me. I learned to accept it as real or "the way it is." I live on the outskirts of a metropolis, the third biggest city in a highly populus region in the southwest. I live in the rolling hills of milk and honey, in one eight acre oasis of cookie cutter houses and plazas of the suburbs that if taken for face value, is the American Dream. I hate it here.

From the outside looking in, this community isn't scummy enough for me, its like a book with all the pages ripped out or forced smiles masking scars. So of course i had dared to travel behind closed doors in a few of these prestine convenant controlled neighborhoods and found only nightmares.Yet these people are hermets in their homes and hide it well with fixures that offset the skeletons in their closets because they think this is the ideal way of living, in a dream, neglecting all the horrible things in life. Their defense mechanism is the astro-turfs lawns, economy vehicles, basketball hoops, granite/rock landscaping, window shutters and "welcome," matts on the doorsteps.

When looking at a photgraph our eyes divert to the focal point and try to receive as much information thats presented to us or that we allow to be presented to us. A camera sees only as much light as it can take in, what the light shines on is irrelavent, a camera and a picture is taken odjectively, with no judgement, no preconcieved notions. It sees the forground, its see the background and everything within the frames. Its us that forms the opinions, passes judgement and neglects to see whats really there and only viewing what we want.

You want to know what i see when takin a objective stance with this yoeman farmer myth? I see sedated housewives with foundation covered eyes, masterful errand runners, constantly busy but never accomplishing a damn thing. Routine. I see meth houses in the most unlikely of cold del sacs, poisoning their children that sleep a couple bedrooms away from the labertories. Wealth. I see gun-totting blonde suburnauts in GTO Ford Mustangs, with speakers so auidle, at every stop light, the earth quakes beneaths the seats with the latest hottest hit on the radio. Crime. I see commerative dog tag chains or T-shirts on teenagers when their friend was murdered over a bag of ill cut coke at the massive gas stations on every corner. I see shrined drunk driving signs on any major intersection reminding us that benige drining more than certainly impairs an eighteen years old girl's ability to drive home after prom. Addiction.

I see people that can't afford things but its different when they don't make it apparent. By some backwater reasoning, when they can't afford things, they buy more. This area is prime for foreclosures, repossesions, evictions and garage sales or estate sales as they choose to draw it out on posters taped to light posts.

After it rains, i smell the fake grass with a hint of plastic and every sunday, when everyone is at mass, i see the bergade of illegal immigrants manicuring the horizon. I see constrution, construction, construction, new plaza mall there, new strip mall here, the eptiomy of arcithectual height is used to build a new muinicple court or a new fast food restuarant, everywhere. Constant renavating, constant improvement, the constant need to merge over the left lane because the overgrown weeds on the median has cracked the curb and some lady with enough time notified public services to come and fix it.

On a sunny day, i see inmates with orange jumpsuits shackled with enough mobility to pick up trash along side empty fields that have been bought out by some new developement company, with their pick and sacks, they dilligently wobble from side to side. I see the liason watching in close distance with oversized sun glasses, blaring music from his pick up truck. Its very clean here.

I choose to focus on the streets, the highways, freeways, tollways, the intersections, the residential round abouts, because here in this area, we are the master commuters. We understand that we can't get around without a car, rush hour traffic, gas prices are more important and take up up most of thinking abilities than anything. Knowingly that our transit system isn't up to par because all the new neighborhoods and streets being built has yet to catch the attention of the public bus system.

Here, in this area, we understand that everything we need to thrive isn't in walking distance, that our jobs, or grocery stores, or wal-marts are miles inbetween. So we go out everyday like a gatherer and hunter and buy want we need and at night we accumulate our findings in our homes. Every morning, at a specific time when the due point reaches saturation, you can hear the exausht pipes of at least 4 other neighbors, warming up their cars and getting everything ready for their average traveling time of thrity minutes to their job or career. And every night, when the last red ray from the sun disappears behind the mountains, the neighborhood is most full, most alive. People come home with broken backs, new experiences or just the same one, with things to decorate their single family dwellings and attempt to have family time.

They come home and all the stresses of the day wear on them to find a new onslaught of issues that were waiting for them between the 9 and 5. They come home to their homelife, and sit down and watch T.V. until the du point hits saturation again and the cycle continues. They don't get angry though, things could always be worse. They could have nothing.

In our reality of perfectly little houses that subside within perfectly tidy little grides, with perfect little lawns and tidy clean streets in which commute everyday to gather our wealth and invest in business in attempt to be entertained back, we realize this is the American Dream. We realize we are the height, the conceptualized ideal of manifest destiny. we are the yoeman farmers our forefathers dreamt about. Where people can live outside the city in complacent communities with rules and statuers and travel to the city to gather our findings without all the fuss like crime, addiction, violence that is centralized in urban areas. we are the people our forfathers dreamt about of being upstanding citizens that although segragated from the city, we are above it. we still need it so we drive a thousands miles every week to it, but when things get to raw, too roudy, too f*****g real and s**t goes haywire we can home at night and stare at out television sets and learn about the outside world through a screen. We aren't concentrated in city blocks and the distribution of population is so saturated that not to expect crime is not to expect the sunrise tomorrow. We don't even talk to each to each other here, people like their silence. Their fences, their window shutters, their screens, their smoking mirrors, their privacy.

We are somebody elses dream and we die trying to live to live up to it, thats what we are taught to be known as " the way it is." I hate this place because at least in the city, or in a village, or in a rural region where people aren't dispersed amongst the country side but rather centralized, theres a chance for humility. You can see whose an alcholics at the bars. You can see the improvished and they ask for help or not. You can see the crime not only so apparent when the cops hundle around the assilant but the crime from trickled down economics. You can see the addictions on the corners. You can anger when the streets are alive protest and those whom are so unwilling to accept the cards they've been dealt. You can also see the beauty, the art of this society and substanial historial content thats been plundered and suffered with rules of regulations of everything needing to look the same to have an identity. Its not some dirty little secret in need of being sheltered behind primped lawns and nice things. When you look at this bigger picture, you see things that aren't ideal, you see things you wish you hadn't, you see everything and don't pretend that its not happening.