“This is our life, love it or hate it / People may not appreciate it
We do, we do
This is our town, love it or leave it / We got it made, if you don’t see it
We do, we do” – We Do, LANco
From the time I set foot in the halls of my high school, I wanted to leave the small town suffocating me. Everyone knew not only your name, but the names of your parents and your siblings. People had preconceived notions on what kind of athlete or student you would be based on your older brothers and if you were the oldest, you set the bar for your little sister. Secrets didn’t exist. Town gossip bubbled from the top of the town hall with each tick of the giant hands of the clock taunting you. There was no exhilarating aura, no mystique.
Every day it was the same boys walking the halls, making the air asphyxiating since they hadn’t learned what the correct ratio of cologne to wear was. Every day it was the same girls flipping their hair over shoulder, trying to whisper about what had happened with the tall guy from Algebra, but by 1:15 p.m., everyone would know what leaked from her loose tongue. Every day, it was the same eight girls at cross country practice. Every day, it was the same blades of grass dancing in the wind – the same cars driving past a secluded campus. Every day, it was the same damn thing.
Monotonous, you could say. Boring. It was too small. Diversity lacked, all that surrounded us were endless corn fields, countless nature preserves and your choice of mom and pop restaurants. As the days leading up to graduation fell away like leaves from the lion’s mane of a tree in autumn, I could not wait to get the hell out.
I’ve spent two years away at college in the great live-free-or-die state of New Hampshire. Being away from my cozy, hidden town gave me a breath of fresh air but it also provided me with an opportunity to look at my quaint hometown with a new perspective and fresh eyes.
As I settle into the lush great arms of the maples and oaks, I no longer feel resentment towards the narrow back roads or the overwhelming quietness. I appreciate all the silent wonder a small town harbors. Walking anywhere in town and bumping into someone who knows your mother or your eldest brother. Feeling the summer breeze caress your face driving your 1998 Jeep Cherokee, windows rolled down, around the perimeter of a lake. The promise of sheltered safety of friendly neighbors. Going on ten mile runs without the fear of running into a huge main road or a highway. Finding solace in between the shelves of the bookshop that’s older than you.
My mother once told me, “It takes a village,” when referencing how to raise a child and she was absolutely and positively correct. It wasn’t just my old folks who helped nourish my youth and help me develop. It was knowing the same kids since we were four years old and growing up together, letting our roots settle in, intertwining with another. It was the steady river winding through the town, splashing our childhood and refreshing our adolescence. It was a fence of enormous roughage, encasing us with protective limbs. It was the giggles of the kids playing out in the yard at 7 p.m., their mother calling, “Dinner’s ready!” It was grandfathers parking their bottoms outside of fence of the soccer field, coughing occasionally from cheering on the youth. It was falling in love with a hockey team that lost more games than it won. It was becoming a family with your high school teams and letting their victories become your own. It was the ding of aluminum bats hitting baseballs at the fields less than half a mile away. It was being able to walk down the hall of your high school, saying hello to almost every face. It was the tall trees in the nature preserve that begged, “Climb us. I bet you can’t.” My parents aren’t the only my sole guardians – it was also this town, this town that raised me.
To my small town of Washington Depot, Connecticut: thank you for keeping me young and innocent. Thank you for sprinkling me with naivety to give me the chance to go out into the world and immerse myself in experience. Thank you for keeping my heart safe and being a home.
This isn’t a pesky, annoying town where everybody knows everybody’s business. This is freedom. This is a quiet getaway. This is a refuge. This is simple beauty in its finest fashion. This is home.
Believe me when I say, wherever I go, I won’t forget that 8-6-0.
