Rainy Day in a Small Town

Last weekend I took a trip to my hometown on a misty, drizzly morning. I wanted to pay a visit to a family member and make perhaps one or two other stops, and it was impromptu, so no one knew I was on the way. I don't know about you, but I usually have an indescribable mix of feelings when I see the outskirts of my hometown come into view. It almost seems like another lifetime since I lived there, and it's been a long time since it really felt like home. I can remember, as a young teen, watching the sunset warm the brick facade of the church down the street with an alluring glow as I looked longingly toward the west and wanted to be elsewhere.

I spent a lot of time imagining elsewhere back then, and it seemed to me that life wouldn't really begin until I could get out of that little town and on to bigger things. Not too different from the way many young people think, although I gather many adults my age look back on their early years and realize they didn't know how good they had it until it was gone. I don't quite look at it that way, but I was surprised to find mild feelings of nostalgia coming up as I was driving around in the rain, looking at places I remembered, many of which remained mostly unchanged, at least to look at.

I didn't find my aunt at home and decided to continue driving around, so I went down the street my grandparents used to live on (and that street has changed--the house is no longer there). I had a clear memory of doing laundry with my mother in the small Laundromat near the end of the block while we were visiting my grandparents on vacation; I can still remember the smell of the place and the peppery taste of the locally-brewed soft drink that we drank ice cold out of the machine. I remember the African violets my grandmother had in her kitchen window, the uphill pitch of the backyard, the squeak of the glider as my grandfather rested there, chatting with whoever stopped by, and the trees we used to climb in the yard. Many of those are happy memories.

I drove past the church and the school I attended and the earliest house I remember living in. I decided to stop and see a friend, though I didn't have much confidence she'd be home, and while I turned down the wrong street initially (funny to get lost in so small a town), I realized my mistake and found the right turn eventually. I didn't find her at home, but I left a message with her mother and continued on my way, out past the high school and into the parking lot of the little shopping center next door. I was thinking about the many times fellow students skipping out must have patronized the businesses in that little mall, the only one of which I remember clearly was a Dairy Queen (now gone). I felt what I might describe as a moment of sympathetic nostalgia on behalf of the other students (I wasn't a skipper) before I turned my attention to the running track, where I did a few turns in gym class back in the day. I didn't particularly like gym or track & field, but it's funny how benign a sight it seemed that morning, a touchtone to a shared past. I spent four years of my life in that school along with my classmates, and although I was happy to move on, when I looked at the building all I felt was a pleasant sense of seeing a piece of the past.

I remembered visiting the homes of friends and classmates and tried to locate some of them, although that was more difficult with all the time that's elapsed, and I felt sure most of their families had moved on long since. I had lunch and decided a trip to the library was in order to get my uncle's address. Since my aunt died this year, I wanted to stop and say hello. I didn't find him at home, either, and that's when I decided to drop by the church, which his family also attended. I wasn't expecting to see him or anyone I knew there, but it was about time for the Saturday evening service, and it had been so many years since I'd been inside that I wanted to see the place again.

Everyone's familiar with that feeling of going back to a childhood place and finding how much smaller it seems, but I was surprised at just how much the dimensions of the place seemed to have shrunk. I assume this happened because I had so few other churches to compare it to back then, but still, I was surprised--I remember it as being bigger by at least half. I do have pleasant memories of services there, especially around Christmas, and I still found it to be as pretty a church as I remembered.

I recognized my uncle a few pews ahead of me, and after church we talked for a few minutes, a conversation in which the names of many family members came up and a sense of the passage of time was very strong. He encouraged me to stop by my aunt's house again on my way out of town, saying she was bound to be home on a Saturday, so I did that but still didn't find her at home. I was a little concerned but knew that there were other family members nearby and figured it was a case of bad timing--it was such a drizzly day that she may have gotten cabin fever and decided on a day out with a friend. Then it was back on the road west, back to Lexington . . . where all these many years later, I can say life did change once I left my hometown, and that many of the things I dreamed of did come true, although I didn't anticipate how challenging life could be at times. I don't think you ever do.

It's hard for me to imagine living in my hometown again, and yet to be honest there has always seemed to be some quality missing in Lexington, something that I can't put my finger on that has to do with the pace of life and the security of knowing many of the people around you. I may have said this before, but I think I've always wanted to combine that sense of belonging and the aesthetic appeal of small town life with some of the diversions and opportunities of a larger city. I've never figured out quite how to do this.

The imprint of small town life remains with me; when I've traveled, I've sometimes come across places that reminded me of where I grew up, and it's a little surprising how pleasant that is. I think it has to do with the human scale of things, the ease of getting from place to place, the likelihood of seeing a familiar face. It used to be nice to be able to walk down the street for an ice cream cone or to see a movie, things I have to get in my car and drive some distance to do now. I don't want to romanticize small town life in any way, because it has its drawbacks--but it also has charms that are lost in the noise and hustle of a city. Maybe it is true that you can't go home again, but I think it's also true that you always carry some of it around with you, no matter where you go.