by Christine Stoddard

I slathered more acrylic onto the set and sighed. It was one of the last days we had to paint theatrical scenery at a large church in Queens. After three weeks of leading volunteers to realize my vision for the upcoming play, I was exhausted. I was ready to peel off my paint-covered rags and hit the hay. Unfortunately, we still had hours left in the day and my “hay” was several neighborhoods away in Brooklyn. This wasn’t even my church. Heck, I wasn’t even a churchgoer, but I had been looking for a chance to give back to the community and this was a short-term responsibility I was comfortable accepting.

This is all to set up just how tired I was—too tired, in fact, to even defend my native land south of the Mason-Dixon

Line. Born and raised outside of Washington, D.C., I lived in Virginia most of my life before moving to New York City several months ago. And though I am happily embracing my new life, there’s still a lot I love about the South. Of course, it’s by no means perfect. I’m the first to criticize it and the first to champion it, no matter the occasion. I see its beauty and its flaws all at once.

One of the volunteers asked where I was from and where I had gone to college. I made a jab or two at Arlington and Richmond before getting a chance to say what I liked about them. Instead, the volunteer interrupted me by congratulating me for moving to New York and saying, “I could just never live where there’s nothing to do.”

Nothing to do?

It’s true that in New York, you don’t need much imagination to entertain yourself. There’s such an amazing diversity of diversions here, more than I had even fathomed. Even the Washington, D.C. metro area doesn’t boast the same kind of variety. In smaller places—where there aren’t 24-hour ready-made amusements everyday of the year—you have to be more inventive. Some people would say this requirement makes smaller places boring.

I admit that I was frustrated or even listless living in Virginia from time to time, but I usually didn’t let those feelings last long. For me, the lack of constant, off-the-shelf entertainment was a good excuse to develop the life of the mind and to write and make as much art as I could. That way I could come to the Big Apple with chops and a portfolio. Still, even a workaholic like me had plenty of moments of pure fun. There was absolutely always something to do.

Sit by the river and listen to the roar of the current. Walk through a cemetery and make up stories for people I would never meet. Trawl thrift shops for strange cast-offs and designer finds. Hang out in the library and spend an entire day tearing through books and magazines. My friends, sisters, and I crashed black-tie affairs, put real miles on our tires, cooked and ate more than I sometimes thought possible, and always managed to uncover new nooks and crannies even in places we had known for ages. Sometimes we’d simply get on our backs and admire the sky because the little city wouldn’t demand more from us than that.

Those are just the mundane affairs. There was still traditional glamour to be had. I met politicians, movies stars, and acclaimed artists and authors in Virginia. I even interviewed and worked with a few of them. My collaborators made projects that were seen across the country and, in some cases, the world. (Go ahead, appeal to my vanity: Google me.)

So much for Richmond being a craphole, eh?

But when I remember Virginia, I don’t focus on such glamour. Glamour is what makes New York famous. It’s part of why I came here: to revel in the glamour and do my part to add to it. When I remember Virginia, I focus on the sparkle that is all its own. I remember the apple farms, the presidents’ houses, the wild turkeys, the blue haze over the mountains, the national monuments, the soul food restaurants, the long, winding roads, and everything else that contributes to Virginia’s texture. That’s the texture that means there’s always something to do, even if it’s not in-your-face about it. Sometimes, the best thing to do is watch and listen.

Sometimes in big, cosmopolitan cities like New York, people are to quick to dismiss the rest of the country. I admit that when I lived in Iowa for my first year of college, all I could concentrate on was what it was not (ahem, which was not the East Coast). But don’t we owe it to so-called fly-over country to take a second look?

I nudged myself to do that when I visited my younger sister in Arizona last year. It was not long before my impending Big Apple move, so I had to remind myself to be in the present. Phoenix isn’t New York, but why should it be? Why can’t Phoenix be Phoenix? It turns out there’s a lot to appreciate about Arizona’s Urban Heart. I loved that there was a cactus on every corner and how vast the sky seemed there. I loved the Pueblo Revival architecture and the abundance of Mexican food. I loved the spaciousness everywhere, whether in homes or in public squares. Everywhere you went, there was this sense that you could breathe and move around without any restrictions.  

Moving to New York has helped me realize that everywhere you go, there’s something to do. Even in tiny towns and even when it demands being creative. The difference here? The people and the bright lights make it so you never have to think about what to do. You just get caught up in the city’s energy and you do whatever it’s calling you to do.

Christine Stoddard is a Salvadoran-Scottish-American writer and artist who lives in Brooklyn. Her writings have appeared in Marie Claire, The Feminist Wire, Bustle, Teen Vogue, The Huffington Post, Ravishly, So to Speak, Jimson Weed, and beyond. In 2014, Folio Magazine named her one of the top 20 media visionaries in their 20s for founding Quail Bell Magazine. Christine is the author of Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia (The History Press) and Ova, a forthcoming chapbook from Dancing Girl Press.