the same old different pittsburgh

On the way home from Penn State about halfway into the trip(around the Blairsville exit) there lies an overpass like nothing that I've ever seen in my life. It's at the bottom of a lookout on top of the Alleghenies and as soon as you pass through it the scenery changes almost instantly. You go from the serenity of the middle of the state to the hustle and bustle that inevitably surrounds most metropolitan areas. And as I passed under that corridor on May 9th, I knew that my way of life was going to change for the next three and a half months. It's hard to describe to people who aren't from Pittsburgh(or any big city for that matter) what the feeling is like when you get back into the sphere of influence of that city. For me, cruising down the Boulevard of the Allies late on a Friday night after a week of finals that could be amply named as hellish, it meant returning to the place I loved. The old staccato rhythms of Pittsburghese that I didn't notice until having heard eastern, southern, and occassional northern accents brought back to me memories of everything from family picnics to baseball games at Leland Field. It seemed as though I spent the last year of my life constantly redifining my existence. I traveled to Boston, Syracuse, Philadelphia, Erie, New Jersey, and occasionally Pittsburgh for weekend visits. My initial thoughts on coming home were that the stability of sleeping in the same bed for three and a half months would be awesome. However, after the usual coming back to see everyone in the first two weeks, that familiar sense of fleeting loneliness began to set back in. Whether I'm throwing stones into the dirty waters of the Monongahela or throwing chips into a pot I can't win in a vibrant casino in Syracuse, the same brick hits my stomach at night when all sixty television stations look the same and everyone is asleep and it's nothing but me staring into the darkness. Buddhist philosophy says that happiness comes from within, not from without. I truly believe that at the end of the day you have to try to stay positive and happy no matter what is going on in the outside world.

Until next time

mh