Because I'm going to live here for my entire life, I spend a lot of time learning to love it. I don't want to list the thousand of tiny reasons I've found, but I do want to tell you today's favorite.
What do I love about my forever small town? It's a rare and wonderful thing to know someone when they were sixteen (or twelve, or eight) and be able to see them as grown-ups.
I love seeing how people change; I love seeing how some people are exactly the same. I love knowing their stories and seeing how those stories shaped and changed lives and families across the decades.
It's like people watching, but with a time machine.
What do you love about where you live?
You know, I was just thinking about this the other day -- about how we've know each other since we were 15-ish. That's a lotta time. And I thought that I'm glad there's this thing called Internet because I get to know you as a grown up and you're pretty kick ass.
ReplyDeleteI like my neighborhood. We've lived here for 7.5 years, and I still love coming home every day. It feels like I live in a vacation town.
*happy sigh* Indeed, I am pretty kick ass. You are as well.
DeleteI didn't grow up in my small town, so I don't know most people at all, and I'm on the outside of that known-you-forever aspect of it, looking in. But some of the things I like best about my town are the small scale (which allows for cute quaintnesses like, for instance, the local water company closing for lunch hour) and the unpretentiousness of people. There may be a lot of rednecks around here, but there seem to be mercifully few pretentious twits. My philosophy is, if you're a redneck, BE a redneck, and don't apologize for it.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great philosophy.
DeleteEverything here used to close at noon on Wednesdays. Post office, banks, stores... everything. I think it was for church. Some doctor's offices are still closed every Wednesday.
Nothing here is ever closed. Except shoe repair places, which are always closed. (And I almost spelled that clothesd, which is a really good indication of either my cold-diminished brainpower or my linguistic creativity.)
ReplyDeleteI barely know what small towns are, except for from movies. Southern California is basically one giant city that stretches from San Clemente in the south to the Grapevine in the north to Hemet in the east. Population: one zillion, demographic: all kinds. I am not going to live in my current inland suburb my whole life, but I am learning to love it too because I'm here now and it's a season and WHY IS IT SPRING AND SWEATY ONE DAY AND HEINOUS WINTER THE NEXT? (figuratively and literally)
Also, I love the mountains, which rise up sharp and clear in the morning when I go to my car, and I love how the first landing of the stairs to my apartment is the best place to see stars at night, and I love how the rising moon shines in my bedroom window just so and makes everything silver stripes. That is all.
DeleteSounds lovely.... I need mountains to be happy. I feel adrift if I don't see mountains in front of me. I wonder if high rises would do the same thing?
DeleteI need mountains AND beach. (It's a California thing. They're both so dang close. It makes it impossible for me to live comfortably anywhere else, I think. THANKS, BEST STATE EVER.)
Delete