DIFFERENT PROFILE, SAME FACE

Bethlehem, PA. Not a place I would choose to spend a weekend, or a day, or let's face it, even an hour. But sometimes life makes the choices for you, and you remember some things long forgotten. My horse trainer, now friend, and I set out on a muggy Friday morning to enter no man's land. For those of you who take offense at Bethlem, PA wearing that label, relax. I'm not talking Bethlehem, I'm referring to the desert that Joseph and Mary had to travel to get there! The horse event we were traveling to was in Reverie somewhere about 20-30 minutes from the city center of Bethlehem. And our modern day North Star was fairly unforgiving with the accurate directions "recalculating" quite a bit before we finally arrived.

This is a land where cows are the best form of lawn mower. This is the place of guys like Mark, who will walk and talk and talk and talk with you while you unpack your horse's stuff. This is the place of my childhood, where bad memories are worse, and good ones never seem to stay long enough. It is here, not in the halls of George Mason University, where I expect the "go home" attitude. This is the place that should have no room for my curly out of control ethnic hair, my no matter how hard I try to be Ann Taylor more Lucky Brand look. People don't wear big silver jewelry here, they don't have brown skin. This is where I joke with Jess, a gorgeous tall white blond, that I will follow ten steps behind her and call her "masser." And in this exact place is where a lesson learned reminds me never to float too long on the current of preconception, because how does that make me any different from the woman who tells me to go back where I came from?

Reverie, PA, where family is so important that every single hotel room is booked solid for high-school graduation ceremonies. Reverie, PA, where although ordering two sandwiches takes forty five minutes from the local deli, they say "good morning", and "hello." And why does it take so long? Because life here flows at a pace all it's own. The lovely ladies behind the counter have no urgent place to be, and they can discuss Beth's picnic, or John's truck with a delight most of us have forgotten. This is a town, an all American town, the heart of it all, and not once was I treated badly. Not once was I told "if you don't like it take it home." Now, I wasn't wearing a chador, I wasn't darker than brown, I didn't have an accent, but just for once, I don't want to wonder about those things, or ponder how they would have changed my experience. Just once, I am going to enjoy my random "good mornings" and "hellos."