EAST COAST KIND, WEST COAST NICE, WHICH ONE IS BETTER

East coast people stand up for this, stand up for that. And they stand up for themselves.

“I do, I do stand up for myself,” is the reply that works best, right until they start talking about what they stand up for.

Then it gets dicey, a little uncomfortable. It’s one thing to stand up with others, another to just stand up by yourself because it’s the right thing to do.

The big part, the most important part, is knowing who you are before standing. From there it breaks down to knowing what you’re standing up for, if you’re standing alone, and who might decide to stand with you.

This isn’t some art take, a symbol, or gesture. It’s standing up, feet on the ground, and showing who the heck you are, who you want to be.

This comes from a previous post, but who are you? I really want to know, so should you. It’s a theme.

Is identity based on location? Research, according to a twitter scroll, revealed evidence on the topic of east coast v west coast personality.

“East coast people won’t say a word for fifteen minutes while they shovel your car out of the snow.”

“If you stand alone at the top of the subway stairs with a stroller, an east coast person won’t say a word, they’ll just help by lifting the front and then walk away at the bottom.”

The subtext was “East Coast people are kind but not nice; West Coast people are nice but not kind.”

I read that as a little too East Coast

I’ve lived on both sides, east and west, including a place in Philadelphia a few blocks from America’s biggest city hall, and Brooklyn, NY.

The Brooklyn place was on a dead end street in a white-flight neighborhood that business owners abandoned to live in Staten Island. They were commuters. Some of them wondered why I, a white guy, chose to live there.

Like it was any of their business. I got a place with great rent owned by someone’s uncle. Was it an act of kindness, or a quick solution after getting booted from my first place?

“You need to find a new place to live.”

“No problem. I don’t know anyone or anything about finding a new place to live here, but sure.”

“My boyfriend has a friend who’s uncle owns a building above a bar with an apartment available.”

“Apartment above a bar sounds perfect.”

I went down, checked it out, met the landlord’s wife in the bar while he poured drinks. I passed the interview, but it started off weird.

She was more Brooklyn than the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Hello, I’m Ennis,” she said.

“Hi, Ennis. I’m David.”

“It’s pronounced Anus.”

“Nice to meet you, Ennis.”

“Anus. My daughter will show you the place. My mother in law lives in the other apartment on the third floor.”

I followed the daughter, a young woman living in the tradition of staying home until marriage to avoid being branded a whore for wanting her own life.

“I grew up in this apartment,” she said, “while my mom and dad worked downstairs.”

“Looks good.”

“I was here alone at night most of the time. All alone, like now.”

She walked to the window.

“I like it,” I said to her back.

“It was so lonely that sometimes I’d stand here and pull my shirt up in the window to see if anyone noticed I was even alive.”

“Well, this looks like a perfect place for me.”

She lifted her shirt in the window.

There was a lovely reflection.

“I hope you move in,” she said, lowering her shirt and turning around.

“I will. I mean, I’m going to move in. Third floor with a view. I couldn’t ask for more.”

“My parents never saw me.”

“I didn’t see anything, either.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Wasn’t looking.”

“Sure. When will you move in?”

“This weekend.”

“Good. I’ll be here.”

“Here, here?”

“I’d keep on eye out if I were you.”

“Right. So we’re good. Let’s go back down and sign the lease.”

I stood at the door with my hand on the knob and opened it when she walked toward me.

I got out of there first, thinking of all of the traveling salesman jokes I’d heard about a car breaking down at night in the country and knocking on a farmer’s door.

They never end well.

Portland West Coast Nice

I shared a small place in NW Portland on 21st and Lovejoy.

Small but nice.

“Let’s get a bigger place,” I said one day.

It was a good idea, I thought. Since then I’ve had other thoughts.

A bigger place together didn’t mean splitting up.

At least not to me.

“You want to split up?” they asked.

No, just a bigger place, bigger than a studio apartment, the kind with one room, a kitchen, and a bathroom.

Maybe a one bedroom place.

I had it by myself first, then with a relationship. I thought getting a bigger place, any place, any where, was a good sign.

I was wrong.

If someone jumps to breaking up as an answer to getting a bigger place together, the path of togetherness takes a sharp turn. Breaking up wasn’t on my mind, but it was on their’s.

I didn’t answer.

“Fine, then we’ll break up,” they said.

And we did. Both of us took a sharp turn. We were nice, but not kind.

Since then I’ve tried to practice kindness. Sometimes it works out better than others. Don’t ask my wife, but she’s a good reference.

I just asked her, “Honey? Honey? HONEY?”

“WHAT?”

“Am I kind? Would you call me a kind person?”

“Yes.”

She said it quickly, followed by, “Not always to me, but in general, yes.”

There it is in a nutshell, West Coast nice.

Ask someone you know the same question and see what you get.

Are you West Coast nice but not kind, or East Coast kind but not nice.

Leave your results in comments.