Dear Hometown,
It's good to be back. The trees here are greener than at campus, the pollen count is higher, (the sneezing has increased). Not much has changed, I see. Parts of the road leading to my old school are still missing in chunks off the side. Veer to the center, watch out for potholes, the same gig. It smells like summer. Summer is different wherever you go, but I recognize it best here, with you. I'm accustomed to daisies poking through the grass in the park every three steps or so. I grew up with butterflies and bees and wasps. You've always been a waspy town, haven't you? Your restaurants are mostly the same. A few have closed, a few have emerged, but mostly, the equilibrium was maintained, and I am not disappointed with the Chinese takeout and Mediterranean options.
Thank you for welcoming me home with a thunderstorm. The air warm and moist, the sky dark and angry. It was pleasant to smell fresh rain soaking into the freshly mowed grass, and the mulch, laid down by the nursery next door. Thank you for the well-light streets. Nighttime driving with my friends, no where to be and therefore all possibilities open and available. We don't speed, but we could if we wanted, your roads are familiar and safe. This is suburbia, each nuclear family is tucked into bed by 9pm. Fathers have to commute on the 6am train, mothers must finish packing lunches before the 8:30am spin classes.
Thank you for the neighbors, whose dogs bark as I bike by. The bagel shops opening at 5am, the way breakfast is flexible and could just as easy be lunch. I live for the way my hair feels under the sun, hot and smooth, borderline burning. I'll wear a cap or put it up, but never leave the softball field before dark. Sweat is commonplace until late August: this is New York, we are humid, this is June, this is July, this is how you set up a sprinkler system, a slip-'n-slide, these are the directions to the town pool.
Iced coffee is brewed local, but never nice beer. This is a place of imported reds and expensive crafts. The children here are mostly shipped up to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont -- eight weeks of lanyards, and soccer, and golf camp. Nail salons get fuller, smoothie bars open up. Thank you for the waiter at the Greek restaurant who knows my order by heart, and my family for years. Thank you for the playground whose slides once entertained me for an entire afternoon, and whose swings now host my friends and I as we contemplate futures. Just a bunch of kids back from college, too old to be sent off to camp, we're sent off for eight months to learn and party and come home again. Thank you for the yoga studios, the pilates boot camps, the gyms, crowded with desperate locals, working on summer bodies, maintaining summer bodies.
Thank you for not changing, hometown. Thank you for welcoming me back with open arms, a string of green lights, and the smell of pizza every few streets. Thank you for staying put, and not changing, ready to take me back and let me in the minute I was ready to return from my adventures. And thank you, for the summer ahead.
