Harrisburg

I live in Harrisburg. I'm visiting Harrisburg. It's weird, driving past Harrisburg Judo and Harrisburg Used Cars and the Harrisburg City Park, knowing full well that there's supposed to be a cemetery, high school, two churches, and a grocery store, only. There's nothing else in Harrisburg. I'm from Missouri, not Pennsylvania, and the mental gymnastics I have to pull is distracting.
Yesterday, when I knew I wanted to end at or near Harrisburg, I spent time looking for Couchsurfing hosts. By about midday, Siddharth responded, but with a caveat: he would be at cricket practice until 8:30. I can't tell you why I struggled with this particularly, but I really didn't want to commit to his host offer. I waited for a bit.
That's when Michael and Cara decided to complicate my life. Mike responded to another query I sent out, and asked if I still needed a place. And he would be available at about the time I arrived at Harrisburg, no muss, no fuss.
I think the problem I wanted to be having was this: will I have enough time to take a shower and fall asleep and wake up rested at Siddarth's house? I think the problem I was really having was stupider: a minor inconvenience was putting me off going to the first host. I mean, I feel a considerable fealty to anyone willing to open up their house to me, but I also felt considerable recalcitrance from such a tiny obstacle. When I try something new for the first time, I have so much inertia getting started that it feels unconquerable. I feel it every time I need to write a paper or formal letter. I feel it when I need to learn a new skill. I feel it when I'm singing or speaking in front of a new group of people. But at the time, the problem I thought I was having was something much darker: am I reluctant because Siddarth isn't like me? He told me today that he's been in the US for three years. Before, he lived in India. He talks with a considerable though totally comprehensible accent. His last relationship fell apart because the girl's parents felt caste pressure and asked her to stop dating him. He is not me. And the thought that this was stopping me freaked me out.
I met Michael and Cara for dinner at Sturge's Speakeasy right near the capitol. It was loud inside, and we yelled at each other about dialects and regionalisms.
"I pinpointed your southern steak!" Mike said with confidence.
"Oh?" I always suspected I had a bit. Growing up in Missouri and living in Tennessee for six years, no one escapes unscathed.
"Yeah! You say a couple words with short vowels, not long ones. Like . . . " He said, grasping for an example. "OK, you say 'Tinnisee,' instead of 'Tenessee.'"
That's very Missouri. I believe him.
Cara leans in: "We visited my family in Kansas, and it took him a week to figure out what my dad does."
"He was saying 'Tires,' which I kept mishearing."
"Oh. Yeah. 'Tahres,'" I say, in a near-perfect mimicry of Missouri.
"He thought my dad was in the tar business."
"You know, for roadways!"
We all chuckle.
These people are like me, though we came from different places. We're college-educated white kids with niche interests. Siddarth isn't exactly like me, but he's a college-educated brown kid with niche interests. And I'm freaking out that it maybe shook me.
But when I arrived at his house, nothing was different or wrong or strange in my guts. I mean, his kitchen smells like curry. But the fear I felt, I think, was not fear of Siddarth, but fear that I would be racist. And that safety I felt when I finally walked through his door at 8:50—that's the true problem here.

After all this introspection and worry, the actual problem is my self-security. I belong everywhere. I adopt everything, without losing my own identity. And is it because I'm white?
In Lowell, I visited the All-Nations SDA Church. It's lovely. I really had an excellent experience. And if you haven't had fried dough with sour cream, you should. But when I walked in the basement door, the latina who saw me first suggested maybe I had the wrong church. She said "There's a white church in Dracut . . . " Like maybe I would prefer that. I just shrugged. I'm not picky. She said "Well, uh, there's a Hispanic church downstairs and an African church upstairs."
"So downstairs it's Spanish and upstairs, what? French?"
"English," she said.
So I walked upstairs. Because even if they didn't speak my primary or secondary languages in either of these services, I was willing to belong, and that freedom  might just be because I'm white. Anyway, that's what I'm afraid of, now.

I'm not from Harrisburg, but I belong here, somehow. If you've never felt that freedom, I recommend it.