A Walker in the Suburbs

“Our literature is filled with young people like myself who came from the provinces to the Big Cave [New York City], seeking involvement in what one always thought from the outside was a world of incomparable wonder, hoping for some vague kind of literary ‘fulfillment,'” writes Willie Morris in his memoir North Toward Home.

I’ve meant to read this book for years, and now that I’ve almost finished it, I’m itching to read his sequel, New York Days. Morris grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, and his description of driving home from Texas through Natchez, Port Gibson and Vicksburg is some of the loveliest writing I’ve ever read about returning to one’s hometown:

“I had the most overwhelming sense of coming home, to some place that belonged to me; I was not merely stunned by its beauty, for this was not new to me; I was surprised to feel so settled inside, as if nothing, no matter how cruel or despairing, could destroy my belonging. It was the last time I felt so strongly about a place.”

Morris became the editor of Harper’s magazine, its youngest ever, and set about chronicling a tumultuous time (the 1960s) in its pages. He edited and befriended many writers, wrote numerous books, was writer-in-residence at Ole Miss and died of a heart attack at age 64 in 1999.

As someone who also came to New York City in my youth, I find the words Morris wrote about the big city absolutely on the mark: “Coming to New York for the first time, the sensitive outlander might soon find himself in a subtle interior struggle with himself, over the most fundamental sense and meaning of his own origins. It was this struggle, if fully comprehended, which finally could give New York its own peculiar and wonderful value as a place, for it tested who you are, in the deepest and most contorted way.”

December 31 usually finds me taking stock of the old year and making resolutions for the new. This year is no exception. But there is a big difference. This year I actually kept one of my resolutions — I started a blog.

I’d thought about blogging for years, but last New Year’s was the first time I resolved to start one — and without the back-to-back blizzards we had in February, A Walker in the Suburbs might be just another “worry less” or “exercise more” — one of those good intentions I carry quietly into the next year.

But it wasn’t. And it has given me more than I could have hoped. After a career of writing for editors — and being an editor — this blog is blissfully editor-free. Well, almost. There’s still the little devil who sits on my shoulder and whispers in my ear: “Do you want to reveal so much?” or “How could you leave that out?” But even that bothersome editor, self doubt, is less intrusive than she used to be.

I started A Walker in the Suburbs not knowing where it would lead or even how often I would post. And it has surprised and encouraged me. Thanks to all of you who stop by this little corner of the blogosphere. May your resolutions come true, too.