Who Is Ms. East?

Written By: Alex Snee

May I dare ask thee: “Who are you, Ms. East?”

“How did you come to be, Ms. East?”

 

“What parts of you, Ms. East, are original?”

“Who comes to visit you, Ms. East, and which parts of you

are favorites to visit?”

May I say: You being a body of land with your own shape, you reveal your

personality. The Native Americans that resided in your parts did

justice in amplifying your majestic nature throughout your parts. Peace and harmony resided within your parts that made you a wonderland. I wish the indigenous peoples understood fully what vision the foreigners had when they came over the Atlantic.

 

Ms. East, your beauty has increasingly become more and more concealed since the Europeans stepped all over your parts…

 

Amagansett.
Bridgehampton.

East Hampton.

Hampton Bays.

Montauk.

Quogue.

Sag Harbor.

Sagaponack.

Southampton.

Wainscott.

Water Mill.

Westhampton.

 

Conquest of your parts, Ms. East, was the first step.
Trade, Ms. East, was the second step.

Commercialization, Ms. East, was the third step.

 

The root of it all, Ms. East, were the people that lacked a deep

appreciation of your beauty. Too bad these people could not borrow the

eye-to-heart-to-eye connection the Native Americans had… a deep

admiration, understanding, and fascination of you.

 

Ms. East will never be what it once was prior to the Europeans approaching her shores, married, ONE in nature with the Native Americans. Ms. East knew she was fertile and the indigenous peoples knew how to have a beautiful intimate relationship with her glorious body of land.

 

Today, Ms. East, is largely covered by manmade things. Though not known as concrete jungle like New York City, where skyscrapers rise into the sky like trees do in nature, the destruction done to Ms. East was an injustice. Why did man choose not to have a respectful understanding of her body of land so we could still to this day have a symbiotic relationship with Ms. East as the Native Americans did in their day? Ms. East is still beautiful, but with man’s imagination condensed upon her through the tools man chose to use for their own good shrunk the beauty Ms. East already possessed. The lack of creativity of man’s mind is what made this a rape rather than a consensual act the Native Americans committed…

 

Before creativity can happen, an understanding must be present. Man’s creativity can only be seen when men choose to build, and prior to building, there must be a vision communicated by an architect. Ms. East was destroyed the lack of genius by the vast majority of architects that sign off on their blue prints. Justice would have been served to Ms. East had Frank Lloyd Wright’s pattern of logic (creating a structure that made nature submit to it) pervaded the minds of all the architects that gave their designs away to the builders that worked on top of Ms. East’s already beautiful aesthetic.

 

Taking a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in southwestern Pennsylvania will convey  exactly how an organic mentality breathes with nature and the possible manifestations the builders that worked on Ms. East.  

 

What has happened to Ms. East is tragic, and nothing can be done to fix it with the mentality people in East Hampton have.  If there were architects that processed the world the way Frank Lloyd Wright did, we would be able to reside in her wonderland and have a wanderlust turned on everytime we’d enter her.

 

Homes weren’t the only manmade things that came to be laid upon Ms. East. Buildings that businesses had to be run in came into the picture as well. This proliferation of money-focused entities further disguised Ms. East’s beauty. What’s worse is, it has divided the eyes of the residents and visitors from the untouched parts of Ms. East (the wildlife, and the beaches).

 

I previously was a visitor to Ms. East and stayed in East Hampton with a family friend. We engaged her rightfully when we went to meet the the bodies of water that acknowledged her strength and resilience every time the waves crashed into her. Fishing, beach bonfires, and family dinner parties on the beaches were our choice pastime activities.

 

I am now a part-time resident of Ms. East for almost 5 years now and have deviated from what I had previously done. Like the vast majority of people that go to East Hampton, I permitted my mentality to be corrupt by their superficial-orientation. This is because I lost sight of, and in turn, appreciation of the untouched parts of Ms. East. I had no wanderlust because I was not in a wonderland that grabbed my attention and piqued my interest to search beyond what my eyes saw. I had officially become a parasite of the European mentality when they came upon Ms. East centuries ago, having a lack of concern with my relationship with nature (with Ms. East).

 

I recently listened to Eddie Vedder’s song, Society, and the words that caught my attention were: “Society, you’re a crazy breed.” Since the Europeans have come onto American soil, the nature of America as we know it has been raped by how manmade things were designed ( they were not harmonious with nature). It was then, that Society began to reveal what kind of breed it was, a crazy breed.

 

Too bad the European Society didn’t take the time to understand the Native American Society. Had they, the eye-to-heart-to-eye connection would had led to a beautiful balance between  man’s built structure and nature. The only reason why is, the Europeans would have wanted to apply the human behavior the indigenous people had with nature with the manmade things with nature, which was to engage it and have a romantic intimacy with it. Then the structures we’d be witnessing today would be jaw-dropping beautiful.

 

The Fallingwater House would be remain beautiful in its own right, but other manifestations would have come to be as original as it was. Just imagine what Ms. East would look like.

 

Though, Eddie Vedder’s song, Society” can sting people attached to society, the words were alive before his time when the Native Americans witnessed before their eyes the destruction of their habitat. They were singing in their hearts in their respective languages the following chorus:

 

Society, you’re a crazy breed

I hope you’re not lonely without me

Society, crazy indeed

I hope you’re not lonely without me

Society, have mercy on me

I hope you’re not angry if I disagree

Society, you’re crazy indeed

I hope you’re not lonely without me

 

The aforementioned song was  in the Into The Wild soundtrack album. Ms. East, if she could speak would have wish to sing the same words and ask the crazy breed Society to reflect on the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright and the everyday life of the Native Americans so what has been done to her may not be repeated elsewhere in the world (a raping of nature).

 

Ms. East came to be by the hearts of the Native Americans because they recognized her. All the parts of her were original when they resided in Ms. East. Other Native American tribes visited her and had their own respective favorite parts to visit.

 

Today, though, how can we truly say we know Ms. East?

 

In all of this reflection, I can say my mentality is in the mode of repentance.