GEORGIA ON MY MIND
OH NO. Oh no, oh no. I started to feel a slight panic as I rolled into town, although this was not that serious.
“Is Savannah smoking Charleston?”
I’ve been living in the South nearly five years now, and it didn’t take me long to find it’s gem, Charleston, fall in love with it, and deem it the 'finest city in America’. I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to travel quite a bit in my life, and nothing has made me feel like quite good ol’ Charlie. The sense of history, culture, community. The fashion, the architecture, the art. THE FEELING. It stood alone on top of my favorite places list.
But here I was, no more than a few minutes into my first visit to Savannah on a picture-perfect Sunday morning, and all of a sudden that top spot felt like it was in serious jeopardy. Could it be true? Was Charleston really only half-way to actual finest city in America?
Oh this place is DIFFERENT.
It felt like another planet. So much so, that when I stepped out of Cam’s truck I expected to hear and feel the crunch of a Mars-like surface under my shoes. But it was bricks. Old bricks, just like Charleston. Familiar terrain. Still, I was hesitant to lift the mask on my space ranger helmet just yet.
As luck would have it I parked the truck by a nice little town square (just kidding, there are 22 of them in a 40 block radius, its harder to find a spot that’s not next to one) and found a bench to enjoy a quick breakfast. I chatted with a local woman named Celia who was doing the same, and while she did give me some good advice, she did not tell me that life was like a box of chocolates.
Editors note: I vaguely remember my dad saying he hated “Forrest Gump” (filmed in Savannah) after he saw it 30 years ago and without ever really watching it, I’ve felt the same ever since.
For him, I inherit the beef (c) Kendrick.
“The next block over is the most beautiful street in America”
Well, Celia, that sounds like something I should probably check out. So after wrapping up my breakfast, I set out to see the highly praised Jones Street.
Oh my goodness. She might be right.
First off, I’m sold on any street that’s lined with trees that meet overhead. ELITE neighborhood vibes.
There were a lot of bricks on Jones Street, but none of them came from me. I didn’t delete a single photo from that stretch of the trip.
The morning light. My goodness, the morning light. It seeped through the Spanish moss and illuminated anything and everything it touched. A tattered American flag, a street-side dumpster, a freshly washed Range Rover, it did not discriminate. Even a photographer from Iowa. If that Savannah morning light graces you with it’s presence, it’s your time to shine.
The architecture was SO OLD. I wasn’t until I got down to the riverwalk that I saw a building constructed in the twenty-first century.
Right about here is where I thought “I could sit here and shoot this street for the rest of the day”.
And right about here is where my body said, no, actually you can’t.
Nature calls.
So I get moving. The goal: find an open business. It’s early. Sunday in the South. Hmmm.
Right about here is where I started talking to God (remember me? It’s me Stew).
I made it to the end of Jones Street. Looks like more neighborhood both right and left, with a park lying straight ahead. I scan the park and spot an answered prayer in the form of dark gray plastic. A Port-O-Potty the size of a backyard shed, one of those fancy versions that have the sink in it. Bingo.
I walk - no, I SKIP over to the shed. God Bless. But wait a sec.
Oh no. Panic creeps in for the second time that morning, but this time a little more serious than before.
Is that red? IS THAT DOOR HANDLE RED!? It’s OCCUPIED. Jesus Christ. I’ve only seen a couple of people outside since Celia. It’s SO EARLY. What are the odds?
At this point I’m not really in position to gamble on finding another one, so I decide to do a lap around the park and hope for vacancy on the way back, no matter what horror might await me on the other side.
The only photo I took at the park. I was 'shooting under pressure' lmao
As I wrap up my quick lap around the park I see two things that I didn’t before: a handful of fellas hanging at the picnic table under the trees, not far from my target destination, and that BELOVED green handle. Looks like these guys spend a lot of their time here at this park, and that is their usual restroom. Based on every prior experience of my life, I expected the worst inside.
But that’s not what I found. These guys seemingly followed a code. Sparing most of the details, they had method for leaving the bathroom as pleasant and ready for the next person as circumstantially possible. While environmentalists and whoever stocked that place would find said practice to be an utter waste, maddening even, the person that had to use it THIS VERY INSTANT found it to be one of the more strangely heart-warming rituals I’ve come across in any culture that I didn’t belong to.
Because let’s be real, I didn’t belong here at all, really. This, again, is a foreign planet to me. It was never even a real place to me until I crossed that bridge this morning. It has always been fictional, a setting, an idea even, that only existed in old movies, books and my imagination.
Savannah, Georgia. It sounds like somewhere you can only get to with a time machine.
But I didn’t have one of those, just Cam’s truck. I was four hours from the place I currently call home, sixteen hours from the place I’ve always called home, and what really makes the outlier in this exact moment - I’ve always had a place to call home. I’ve never been to Georgia, nor do I know anyone in the state, let alone this ancient city, and I’ve certainly never had to rely on a portable bathroom on any sort of regular basis.
So who the hell am I to show up here and not leave this restroom - their restroom, as far as I could tell - exactly as I found it? (well not exactly, but you know what I mean.)
So that is what I did. I stuck to their code. As an outsider in every sense, it’s the least I could do.
The more I travel and the more I live in a town that’s traveled to, the clearer this becomes to me: If you are visiting somewhere you know NOTHING about, at least make sure you’re not shitting on their traditions, their values, their rituals, their way of life.
And unfortunately in this case, I mean that literally.
Back on the streets with a bounce in my step, I was ready for some exploring. Jones was incredible but there’s plenty more to see, and little time to see it. I had a few hours before I needed to be back in Hilton Head. The clock’s ticking.
I had received a message earlier in the day saying to get to the JW Marriot - “They have a dino in there”.
Well OK then. Let’s go dinosaur hunting.
Not a dinosaur.
The city was a buzz now. Around every corner was another line for a different church, everyone dressed in their Sunday’s finest, regardless of which decade that Sunday was in. The park benches filled up with morning readers, coffee drinkers, and people who called them home.
People walked their dogs, chatted on walkways and whizzed past on scooters and bikes.
Savannah had woken up.
This place has a soul.
I made my way through downtown to the riverfront area, where the dino was said to be located. Upon my arrival, I felt some of the mystery dissolve. I wasn’t really any closer to home, maybe a mile or so, but it certainly felt like I was. Whereas the rest of my trip up to this point it felt like I needed to have my passport ready in case someone asked, this felt like… Davenport? Galena? Dubuque? All of the above?
(Charleston keeps the crown for now.)
I’ve always felt comfortable wandering hotels that I don’t belong in (I’ve been doing it for years now) and Savannah was no exception. While looking for the JW Marriott, I wound up at the (regular?) Marriott next door to it and did some poking around. However, sometimes that comfort can backfire - I took this picture from a walkway between a rooftop restaurant that was not open yet and a 3rd floor door that you needed a hotel key to get back in. I was, as luck would have it, stuck here.
Thankfully a restaurant employee showed up not long after. I scooped my camera and water bottle, nodded confidently and slipped out as she held the door. As cool as I played it, she obviously knew I was stuck up there and probably had a laugh about it with her coworkers a minute later.
Even with the power of Google (don’t get me started) and GPS, it took me another lap to find the JW. I have no problem asking for directions but you really don’t want to stop a hotel employee and ask them if they know where to find the dinosaur. I was told there is a dinosaur.
Well holy shit. Would you look at that.
Truth be told, the JW lobby had a lot more impressive stuff than the dino. It was essentially a fully -functioning museum and gift shop, packed with some of the rarest and finest gems and fossils on earth. Right at the entrance, for example, there was a 7th century Brazilian quartz, about the size of a port-o-potty, letting you know you’re in the right spot.
A real rock that came from this planet.
I wasn’t in the right spot though, my spirit felt. It longed to get back to the Spanish moss, the oxidized-green fountains, the mystery of old Savannah. I needed to get back to the city squares, to the wrought iron gates and the hoofs clacking on brick roads.
I needed to find Bird Girl.
Because I did exactly no research (I thought Savannah was like 8 hours from Myrtle until last week) I had no idea where to look for her, I just knew she was in Savannah. But I was hoping she was outside somewhere so that I could get an atmospheric picture, perhaps in the courtyard of a building like the one shown below, as she is seen on the cover of The Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil.
I figured if she was outside, there would be a line or a large group gathered around or something, as many Instagram-able spots often have, providing me a challenge that I would happily accept.
Sometimes you gotta shoot with a hand in your face.
So I’m on foot, on the hunt for specific statue in Savannah. That’s not like looking for a needle in a haystack, that’s like looking for a specific needle in a bucket of needles. There’s 22 town squares, probably a hundred hidden courtyards, and and wait a sec - is my shirt sticking to me? How did it get so hot so fast?
I make it another ten blocks or so before I have to step inside somewhere. What is going on? I’ve gone running in the summer in Florida. I went to basketball camp OUTDOORS in Arizona. So why does it feel like the sun is 14 feet from my face? It’s 11 am. In September.
This place is different.
The building I chose is, what do ya know, spectacular. The Children’s Art Museum - or CAM, as it’s effectively known. I wander into the giftshop looking for something liquid and cold, and there she is. A postcard with Bird Girl on the front.
Excuse me, do you know where this statue is? I ask the clerk behind the desk.
Yes, of course. It’s across the street in the Telfair Academy. She points out the window.
No kidding. I scan the landscape from left to right. Wait a sec. That’s Cam’s truck in the distance.
I parked it five hours ago, unknowingly outside the 'CAM', a few blocks from Bird Girl. I’ll be damned.
There she is.
This sounds impossibly stupid but I was… star struck? It’s just a statue, after all. But it’s been on the cover of a book that has sat on my bookshelf for the last 15 years, and certainly not just mine. It’s a symbol of the Gothic American South, a spirit trapped in a piece of art, made into another piece of art.
And even though she was trapped inside this building right now, she was stunning.
“We are confident, I say, and willing to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”
This last pic is my favorite, putting 'my spin' or 'my take' on a famous scene that has been photographed a million times is something I get a kick out of. Editors note - the Bible verse quoted is chiseled in stone at her feet, not something I selected from my extensive studies (lol).
These were taken in the room above Bird Girl, which was, dare I say it, equally captivating. I tried to capture some people in the photos to give some sense of scale. The ceilings had to be 30 feet high. You could feel the history (ghosts?) in the room.
As I was walking back to the truck with a brand new Bird Girl tea towel around my neck, I caught eyes with a gentleman sitting on a park bench.
I hope you have a blessed day, he said to me.
He had pain in his eyes, something I recognized instantly, because I have a mirror in my apartment.
Well actually man I already am. What’s your name?
Larry, he tells me.
Larry I’m about to slide into this CVS do you want anything?
A Gatorade, something cold. I feel him. It’s noon now, which means Savannah is now twelve feet from the sun instead of 14. I can feel it already and I’ve been in a museum for the last 30 minutes. This guys probably melted to the park bench.
You got a favorite flavor Larry? He probably did, but was too polite.
So this will be it, I decided. My thank you to a strange, foreign feeling land that not only accepted me but wished me a blessed day in the meantime. I walked back to the park and handed the gentleman two CVS bags and said thank you for making my day with his kind words. If he did have a favorite flavor, I’m sure it was in there.
I began the trek back to Hilton Head, and eventually Myrtle, feeling like my spirit had been moved a little bit that day; with my head held high and Georgia on my mind.
THANK YOU SAVANNAH <3