by Rebecca Camarda<\/p>\n
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\nMy beloved New Jersey,<\/p>\n
Jersey, I love you, but I\u2019m not in love with you, not anymore.\u00a0 I\u2019m too comfortable within your borders, and I have to face the unknown that you made attractive.\u00a0 From the moment we met you\u2019ve been my home.\u00a0 I\u2019m a product of your experience, I thank you for that.\u00a0 Like a guy in an old leather jacket with a bad reputation and a heart of gold, you\u2019ve shown me that you\u2019re more than fake tans, big hair, and oil refineries.\u00a0\u00a0 You\u2019re so much more than that, from your mountains and beaches to your farm lands and ghettos.\u00a0 You\u2019re beautiful and gritty, elegant and raw.\u00a0 I wish you\u2019d never change.<\/p>\n
New Jersey, I love you.\u00a0 During the summer, you guided us along the Turnpike, six stupid teenagers in a rusty Jeep Wrangler headed towards Six Flags.\u00a0 Each of us, even the driver, the rebel of my adolescent fantasies, chugged a can of Coke to see who wouldn\u2019t have to pay full price.\u00a0\u00a0 And then you\u2019d send us careening down Route 18 to the shore that brought us fame.\u00a0 Long before MTV\u2019s boorish Situation there was Bruce Springsteen, serenading disenchanted youth at the Stone Pony.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never made my offering to the Boss personally, but I\u2019ve memorized his gospel.\u00a0 You gave me religion in the form of music, because it ain\u2019t no sin to be glad you\u2019re alive.<\/em><\/p>\n Later, cool summer nights on your shore taught me to drink beer and smoke weed, and to let the waves consume my body.\u00a0 You were hospitable to all that made the pilgrimage to your beaches, even the wayfarers I brought to you from Massachusetts, allowing them to float freely in the darkness while keeping them safe between the jetties.\u00a0 We thought we were on a disk resting on the backs of elephants, perched on a turtle, flying through space.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t care about our intoxicated ramblings; you embraced us with wet sand and caressed us with warm breezes.\u00a0 Days were spent baking in the sun, not caring if your sand clung to my toes and underneath my fingernails.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t wash my hair for days at a time to let the smell of your ocean linger.\u00a0 The aroma of your Atlantic is a lover\u2019s sweat shirt; it envelops me and offers me comfort.\u00a0 Your beaches to me were not the herpes infested waters of Seaside Heights, but the abandoned concert halls of Asbury Park, where the wind blew rock and roll through our brains.<\/p>\n New Jersey, I love you, for the decrepit boardwalks of Atlantic City where casino marquees made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world.\u00a0 Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty and meet me tonight in Atlantic City<\/em>, Bruce and my rascally first love sang to me, and I took the invitation.\u00a0 In stride with the homeless and more than a few prostitutes, he squeezed my hand and asked, \u201cCan I keep you?\u201d\u00a0 We were na\u00efve children yearning for the night when we\u2019d become adults, unaware of the conditions of the world. \u00a0We had dreams of making it big no matter what, and although we weren\u2019t old enough to gamble, we thought the atmosphere would somehow bring us luck and good fortune.\u00a0 We developed a hunger for gambling any way we could.\u00a0 You made us crave risk, whether it meant nights filled with the opposite of abstinence or our plans to leave the bosom of suburbia to seize our dreams, we wanted danger.<\/p>\n We\u2019d speed away from Atlantic City, driving much later than the designated curfew on our provisional licenses. Riding in cars with boys along your highways and back roads taught me to be comfortable as I am.\u00a0 When you\u2019re in a car with nothing but open road and a mixed-tape you can\u2019t help but appreciate the company you keep and those that keep you.\u00a0 You taught us to fall in love, not only with each other, but with you.<\/p>\n New Jersey, I love you.\u00a0 North Jersey guys would come down to Rutgers parties from Hoboken or Newark, with their pseudo-Brooklyn accents, and bitch about the absence of a Quick Check on every corner.\u00a0 Veiled by sweatshirts reading JERSEY STRONG on the back they possess a more aggressive, localized pride.\u00a0 They love you of course, but not all of you.\u00a0 They hate South Jersey, where everything seems to slow down, and kids hang out in the Wawa parking lot because they have nothing better to do.\u00a0 South Jersey kids would show up at the same sloppy Rutgers parties with their Phillies caps and Eagles jerseys, and inevitably got into fist fights with Yankees and Giants fans from North Jersey. Where North and South Jersey meet in the middle though, that\u2019s where your spirit is the strongest.<\/p>\n The elusive Central Jersey: the fuckers in the North and South deny it exists.\u00a0 Central Jersey is what I know and love, for the presence of Quick Check, Wawa, and 7-11, for the proud yet open attitude, and the ideal location.\u00a0 With Rutgers in our backyard, equidistant from New York, Philadelphia, the beach and the mountains, the heart of Central Jersey pulsates from the multitude of influences.\u00a0 It seems to never sleep because somebody is always going to or coming from somewhere not so far away.<\/p>\n New Jersey, I love you.\u00a0 You gave me Somerset County, where 4 miles from a 300 year old farm you\u2019ll find public housing in one direction, and Princeton University 10 miles in the other.\u00a0 You cultivated a breed of people that are truly genuine and unashamed, with thick skins and tender hearts, the street smart intellectuals.\u00a0 We\u2019d gratuitously call each other motherfuckers and mean it in the best way possible.\u00a0 \u201cHey motherfucker, got any smokes?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cSure thing, motherfucker.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0Sons and daughters of beauty parlor owners mingled with children of immigrants, and families that established themselves before the colonies gained independence.\u00a0 Black, white, Latino, or Asian, Muslim or Hindu, Jewish or Jain, you didn\u2019t care as long as we were together.<\/p>\n You gave me an education in race relations, taught me that music was the universal language.\u00a0 Above all, we loved Bruce.\u00a0 Amateur rappers in our high school sampled \u201cBorn in the USA,\u201d and we passed those tapes around like they contained the meaning of life. But it was more than just Bruce, our high school choir sang \u201cBohemian Rhapsody,\u201d and the rhythm of the streets in Newark and Camden brought us Wyclef Jean, Whitney Houston, and Queen Latifah.\u00a0 The plight of suburbia produced Gaslight Anthem, Bon Jovi, Patti Smith, and Pete Yorn.\u00a0 Thursday emerged from the basement shows of New Brunswick, our generation\u2019s pride and joy.<\/p>\n New Jersey, I love you.\u00a0 Your proximity to New York gave us dreams of opportunity, of the great wide open and the people we\u2019d meet.\u00a0 There was bitter contempt though, for the assholes in New York.\u00a0 They were in it, doing whatever they could and actually making it, or not, but being better for having tried.\u00a0 We envied them, and memorized the transit route to make weekend trips to see concerts and plays, and once or twice just to order ribs at Spanky\u2019s on West 43rd<\/sup> Street.\u00a0 We traveled there to feed our illusion, but every night we\u2019d retreat from the chaos of Manhattan to you, New Jersey, our sanctuary, our home.<\/p>\n Midnight trains from Penn Station to New Brunswick always gave us enough time to stop by the Grease Trucks, where we would order Fat Darrells and Fat Sacks for our home town heroes.\u00a0 If for some reason the Grease Trucks were closed, we\u2019d drive off to one of the countless 24 hour diners and gorge ourselves on waffles with ice cream and disco fries.\u00a0 Bloated and drunk on your sweet night air we\u2019d lay down on someone\u2019s lawn to gaze at the stars, and sometimes fall asleep only to be rudely awakened by an angry mother.\u00a0 But more than our own parents, we were faithful to you, Jersey, because your love was far more unconditional.<\/p>\n New Jersey, I love you.\u00a0 I hate what they\u2019ve done to you though.\u00a0 They\u2019ve polluted your atmosphere with oil refineries and chemical plants.\u00a0 I forgave them for that, because North Jersey might as well be New York anyway.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t say anything when The Sopranos made us all out to be mafia pawns, but no, I have to draw the line somewhere.\u00a0 This Dirty Jerseylicious Real Housewives of the Jersey Shore horse shit would break Bruce\u2019s heart: alcoholic, cocaine snorting, bar fighting, fake tanning moronic manure?\u00a0 Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey, paid $32,000 for Snooki to sit there for thirty minutes.\u00a0 What happened?\u00a0 Why have these plastic bags of trash been allowed to reappropriate your shoreline?\u00a0 For the Boss\u2019 sake, smother them all with your waves and bring back the muscle car driving, bandana wearing, heartbroken yet jubilant kids that made it out alive to spread your spirit.\u00a0 Expect from yourself what you expect from your people.\u00a0 New Jersey, I know you\u2019re still beautiful, still seductively tragic, but you have to end this phase of delusion.\u00a0 Don\u2019t sell yourself short, we\u2019ve all got too much faith.<\/p>\n New Jersey, I love you for so many reasons.\u00a0 And most of all I love you because I know you understand that I need to leave you.\u00a0 Pardon the clich\u00e9, but it\u2019s not you, it\u2019s me.\u00a0 The personality you shaped is moving beyond your Turnpike and Parkway into uncharted territory.\u00a0 I\u2019m fulfilling your dreams for all of us dreamers that hail from the Garden State; I\u2019m moving out and on to the great wide open full of ambition.\u00a0 Without you, I wouldn\u2019t have that sense of adventure or desire for more.\u00a0 Our twenty one years together have been fantastic, provocative, even awe-inspiring, but if there\u2019s anything your messiah has taught me, it\u2019s that tramps like us, baby we were born to run.<\/em><\/p>\n Thanks, motherfucker.<\/p>\n Becky by Rebecca Camarda \u2018Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run \u2014 \u201cBorn to Run,\u201d Bruce Springsteen My beloved New Jersey, Jersey, I love you, but I\u2019m not in love with you, not anymore.\u00a0 I\u2019m too comfortable within … Continue reading
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\nREBECCA CAMARDA<\/strong> was born and raised in Somerset, NJ, and migrated north to Boston, where she is currently studying Writing and Literature at Emmanuel College. She readily anticipates earning her degree with a minor in Gender Studies in the Spring of 2012. Rebecca is also an editor of Emmanuel\u2019s literary journal, BANG! magazine, and she enjoys sitting in her bath tub with a bottle of wine, even in the company of friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"