It's odd being back in the town I grew up in. Everytime I come back, little things have changed. New restaurants and shops have opened, others have moved or closed, new houses have been built, others renovated or painted. Schools and parks get new playgrounds, streets get new stoplights and street signs. Little tweaks, beautification projects. The town is undergoing a continuous facelift. And every time I'm here I barely have time to see all the new changes before I'm gone again, and when I come back I've forgotten all the changes from the previous time, so they've all just built up and now it almost feels like a different town.
Since I've left, both the high school and the middle school have had massive construction begun and completed. New homes and suburban communities have sprung up on previously undeveloped land, so that the city has spread out, and when you're driving you reach its outskirts sooner than you used to. A new public bus system has been instated. The favorite local coffee shop has expanded to twice its size, and the best bakery in the state is also currently being expanded. Countless other little things have changed, so that I'm almost becoming a stranger in my own town. Or at least--a visitor.
Even in my parents' house, things have changed in my absence. It's been repainted. The kitchen has been renovated and expanded. The floor-to-floor carpeting in the upstairs hallway has been ripped out. My old room has been emptied of all things that made it mine. It's a guest room now. When I was drying the dishes for my dad tonight, I didn't know where anything belonged. It's all been moved around. Little things.
But in other ways, things are very much as they ever were. High schoolers still haunt the Spring Street Deli. The secondhand bookshop hasn't so much as replaced a decaying bookshelf. The farmers' market still bustles every Wednesday and Saturday, and the same farmers still sell, the same farmers who have seen my parents move here and have kids, who've watched the three of us grow up and run off, and who will always greet us with big smiles whenever we come back.
One of the farmers needs help on her farm, they're very behind, she says. I offered to help. Starting tomorrow--7am--I'll be going out to the farm a couple days a week for 9-10 hours a day to help them harvest. Gives me something to do, a reason to get out of bed. We'll see how it goes. I've never done farmwork before, or even really outdoors work at all. Somehow, despite always feeling like coming back here is like walking back into my past, things do change, and this is proof: I'm doing something new! Who'd've thought.
Comments