The Nutmeg State

Everyone asks me how I like Connecticut. Especially people who actually live in Connecticut, who apparently have some kind of vested interest. “How do you like Connecticut?” they ask.

I reply, “It’s pretty.”

And every single time, the person who’s asked me the question will look at me with a kind of sideways, stank-face expression of abject horror, as if they suspect me of slandering their state with some kind of backhanded compliment.

Actually, it’s as if they have heard of the incident after a terrible choral concert through which I and a bunch of friends once sat with our hands over our eardrums to prevent the discord from piercing our eardrums and making them gush blood. When our mutual acquaintance who was part of the concert came out to greet us after the merciful conclusion of the double-encore, everyone else suddenly pretended that they hadn’t been rolling their eyes and whining during the musical carnage, or that they hadn’t rushed during intermission to the bar next door to slug down shots to get them through the second half. The air was full of totally insincere Oh, what a fantastic concerts! and I’ve never enjoyed myself mores!, until the acquaintance turned to me with raised eyebrows and an air of expectation.

“You know,” I told him with great enthusiasm. “That is really a nice shirt you’re wearing!”

Yes. It’s as if Connecticut looks at me askance because I’ve told it that it has a really nice shirt.

I don’t mean the compliment as anything other than what it is, however. Connecticut is pretty. Flowers stay in bloom for an obscenely long time, as if they’ve forgotten that they’re supposed to be seasonal and have packed their bags to come visit and stay a good long while. I can’t walk twenty feet without stumbling over a picturesque brook that doesn’t have the common decency not to burble. The trees grow high and wide and broad, and in the late autumn they all shed their brilliant, jewel-colored leaves in one grand choreographed flourish, over the passing of a single night. Heck, it’s it’s January right now and the grass is still a vivid emerald green.

Everything in Connecticut is just so pretty. I can travel down the road through the quaint, adorable New England town center of Old Greenwich—with its town clock, old-fashioned storefronts, and an overall village charm that’s only missing a friendly Dalmatian in the doorway of the teeny-tiny fire station—and come out a mile later on the beach. Everything there is quiet and calm and serene where the soft sands lie in pillow-like ripples, or else it’s unspoiled and beautiful where the winter reeds blow between the rocky western coast. And then there’s the Emerald City of Manhattan on the horizon, a mere twenty miles away, glittering over the sound like a jewel.

I can drive in any direction and encounter majestic outcroppings of rock, or beautiful rivers dotted with pleasure crafts, or vast forests, or rolling, endless farmland. The people of Connecticut curl their lips at the mention of Bridgeport, its most disreputable and least picturesque city. But you know, I lived for twenty-five years in Detroit, and Bridgeport, you don’t scare me. I can say for certain that most citizens of the neighborhoods within the Detroit city limits would look at Bridgeport, with its intact houses and roads and the sun glittering seductively on the water, and think it an urban oasis.

There’s stuff I don’t like about Connecticut, to be certain. There’s only one major artery through the entire state, and it runs east to west and if it’s jammed from an accident or just congested, you’re doomed to sit in your car for three hours. You’re also pretty much condemned to a painfully slow trip if you want to travel anywhere from north to south, as you’re pretty much restricted to doing it along tiny little one-lane roads, usually behind a UPS truck that blocks the road as it stops every three houses to make a delivery.

I don’t like the fact that it’s tough to visit a big box store of any sort. There just aren’t that many, and they’re inconvenient and far between. In Michigan, or in Virginia, or in any of the other places I’ve visited, I could pick any of the five Targets within a five-mile radius of the house, drive there on a speedy freeway, park quickly in the lot, grab cat sand and shampoo, and get home within a half-hour. Visiting a Target here involves navigating through downtown Stamford, parking (and paying for the privilege) in a multi-story deck, taking an elevator to Target, and then wrestling my purchases back to the deck before trying to get out of the downtown area.

Either that, or I can drive to the only other Target in the area, in White Plains—a city I believe was described in The Inferno as part of the lowest circle of hell, in which all the streets are one-way and heading north.

Then there’s the Connecticut shrug, which everyone will gladly perform if you suggest that the state is missing something, like a good Thai restaurant, a place to buy cheesecake, or a karaoke bar. “Oh, you can get that in the city,” they’ll say, doing the shrug and jerking their head in the direction of Manhattan. My first few months here, I heard the phrase so often that I declared You Can Get That In The City should be officially made the state motto, Latinized, and sewn onto the Connecticut flag.

But when it comes to other things, Connecticut is tops. Need a hot pretzel shop, like a Wetzel’s Pretzels or a Auntie Annies? You’re in luck, because the Connecticut malls have cleared out establishments like Banana Republic and Gap and Macy’s in order that every mall can be all pretzel shops, all the time, from one end to the other!

And do you need the ability to hop out of your car and pee over the railing on I-95? Maybe you’re too shy to do so in lesser states like New Jersey or Pennsylvania, but man, Connecticut’s got you covered. Whip it out and whiz away! No one cares that you’re only three feet from the traffic, or that there are actual rest stops down the road or a McDonald’s at the next exit with an indoor facility. Not in Connecticut, baby! Just let that urine fly!

And prettiness. Connecticut is really, really pretty.

Maybe it’d just have been better if I’d stopped there.