That truth aside, I’ve
more than once described my little village as seeming like Thornton Wilder’s
imagined New Hampshire hamlet. My town is a collection of little roads, looping
back and forth across each other and all mostly hidden between the main road
and the National Forest. There is a church with a white steeple and a bell that
rings at noon and six. The local school has kindergarten through sixth grade
and people regularly worry that not enough local babies will be born to keep
the school going much longer. In the winter, you can ski on Nordic trails
almost anywhere in town, including to the library, the post office, the local
down hill area that keeps cubbies for the grammar school students, and the
historical society. I think that we’ve got more picturesque inns and charming
bed and breakfasts per capita than anywhere outside of the BBC. The geographic
center of town is the green with a duck pond, a walking loop, soccer fields and
a weekly, local, seasonal, farmer’s market[2]. In the few places around town where you cannot
see the not-so-distant White Mountains, you are consoled with shorter range
views of the local hills, the historic bridges that span gurgling rivers and
babbling brooks, the flowers and foliage and snowscapes. Personally, I like the
frozen pillows of snow-covered rocks in the icy snow choked river in the
winter. And the lilacs. And the crisp stars.
I could hardly live in a
more beautiful place.
But, like anywhere, it’s
got a few drawbacks. All this beauty means the town is swollen with tourists,
except in November, April, and May. We need them, obviously, but it’s not an
entirely easy relationship. I think that, psychologically, it can’t be healthy
for a region to depend so heavily on jobs in various iterations of a service
industry. It is hard to always be downstairs, rather than upstairs—you may
begin to believe you are as limited as you are often treated[3]. And, I wish that people would remember to pack
their common sense, self-awareness, and manners when going on vacation. Simply,
it is hard to make a functional life here, rather than dancing around trying
out different seasonal jobs that cater to visitors in some way or another.
I had this thought in
mind the other day when I ran into one of the published writers who lives in
town. The author said[4] that I remind them of their younger self, just a
young person casting around for what my life is going to be[5]. We chatted in this vein for a few minutes, with
me nodding mostly and occasionally throwing in a comment about how my
generation—or perhaps just the people I know—are not measuring ourselves by the
same bench marks as previous generations. For example, I do not need a lumpy
diamond ring, a morgage, some babies, a 401K, or a white picket fence to feel
as if I’ve made it in this world.[6]
Regardless, after this
idly well-intentioned and banally agreeable chatter, the author asked me how
old I am. “Oh…” came the tepid response, “you’re not really that young any more, are you?”[7]
For fuck’s sake.
I was then regaled with
this person’s plan for a new book—the story of coming out of the city and into
the mountains, into this simpler way of living. How the image held in this
writer’s brain—before coming to the mountains—was of making muffins on a crisp
fall morning with the mountain views in the distance. I’ve done just that, more
thoroughly than most can, and it was one of the great experiences of my life.
But this entire book proposal of my neighborhood scribbler seemed off.
Being called old,
essentially, irked me less[8] than the continuing trope of lionizing,
celebrating, only one kernel of the truth about a place. Often, I am late for
work because the roads are full of slow-driving tourists, trolling the highway
for their annual dose of our local simplicity and quaintness. What we don’t
need, what this place doesn’t need, is another book on that subject.
I have more patience with
the word “simple” than I do with “quaint,” but only by the slimmest of margins
and my acceptance of either is totally dependent on context. I could rage up a
storm about the condescending ignorance of many of the tourists I encounter,
who seem to assume that I must be some sort of slow-witted noble savage because
I live here, but now is not the time[9].
What got me, this time,
was the assumption that here
is the only place where life could be simple or beautiful or good. Or that a
life lived here is inherently simpler, more beautiful or better, through sole
virtue of geography. Mountain towns are mountain towns, for better or worse. We’re
short on jobs and long on beauty, this is true. I’m finding more and more that
the toll of making a living here cuts, vastly, into the amount of time to get
out and enjoy the local beauty that pulled me—like a magnet—here in the first
place. It’s not a simple place.
Really, one can bake
blueberry muffins and watch how the sunlight plays in the muffin-steam
anywhere. It will be beautiful and life-affirming in any place. It’s true that
one can’t be on skis or above treeline everyday in another place, but living
here, I don’t have time to do those things anyway, much as I might like to. I’ve
got my jobs to get to, my groceries to buy, my oil to change, my wedding to
plan, my country's 500th anniversary to arrange, my wife to kill, and Guilder to blame for it; I’m simply swamped…
My mountain town home—warts
and skinny legs and all, as I see it, living here—is someone else’s beautiful,
stylized, fetishized “other.” This sense that we only look for beauty outside
our own spheres is sad, at best. I was in a large city recently and was
overcome with the riot of morning glories exploding out of every dooryard.
Morning glories, as they twist out into fairy-trumpets from the nocturnal state—when
they look like chewed strings—are some of my favorite flowers. It’s a sunrise,
best-foot-forward, dare-to-hope-today-will-be-wonderful, kind of flower. I love
that, and how delicate they seem, but how sturdily and quickly they take over
porches and trellises.
A few blocks later, a man
on a bus stop bench offered to sell me a poem. Because of the morning glories,
I didn’t need a poem to get through the strange street. Another day and I would
have grasped his poem like a life preserver,[10] needing the familiarity of words and beauty even
if the terrain was unfamiliar and overwhelming. Knowing that flowers and poetry
exist even in grubby, paved street hemmed in by buildings and traffic and
bustling people…that is
something more valuable than either.
It is a mistake to assume
that beauty or a good life can be found in only one place. I’ve spent a long
time thinking that—hence why I am here in this town, but I’m finding, more and
more, that the trick is to learn how to look, everywhere. I’ve no objection to
any sort of travel in search of beauty or adventure. I just don’t like the
assumptions that life is simpler or better based on geography. If you believe
that it is, you’re missing out on too much. Morning glories against a chain
link fence on an empty lot and the fire of maple leaves against a brilliant
blue October sky—neither are simple, one is not better than the other, but both
are worth the time to notice.
Like I said, everywhere
is Grover’s Corners, if we can only realize it. I’m trying.
[1] Read it.
Now.
[2] Which, I
blame, for the creation of this blog.
[4] With best
intentions, I’m trying to believe.
[5] As this is
not someone I know well, I was taken aback that my eclectic life trajectory is
so transparent.
[6] I’ll happily
settle for one job, (year-round, full-time, with health insurance), access to
arable land and the alpine zone, a stack of books, and some attractive dude(s)
to make out with.
[7]That is
verfuckingbatim. WHO THE HELL SAYS THAT?
[8] Slightly.
[9] Although,
this is probably just the place for just such an impotent rant.
