I went home to celebrate my wife and my dad’s birthdays last night. The birthdays were last Thursday and Friday, respectively. Yesterday happened to be Tuesday, and the season happens to be summer, which meant that my hometown’s “Summer Tuesdays” event was going on downtown. It’s one of the few non-touristy, non-yuppie things left in the town, just a little market in the parking lot and a band and a movie in the park along the river.
No camera, so I spent a lot of the evening just looking around, trying to mentally capture happy images. Here’s some:
Mothers holding toddlers, grandparents kissing babies.
Little kids running around through the crowd, some of them in costumes of old clothes, all of them oblivious to anything but childhood. The kids who aren’t kids anymore but who aren’t teenagers yet, having a great time but trying to make sure nobody could tell. Walking around close to each other, staring at the crowd. The teenagers surprisingly loose and angst-free, dancing to the music, talking a little too loudly, happy with themselves.
A classy man wearing a straw hat with a black band, a linen jacket, a Cabana shirt, linen pants, dancing the cha-cha expertly with his beautiful companion — daughter, wife? — and then half the ladies in the crowd all night, but always coming back to his partner in pink, especially for the last dance of the night: the tango.
A balloon being pushed away from Earth by the evening wind, up toward the cloud world. Thinking about how life is like that.
Looking out from behind the stage, seeing the musicians comfortable, the crowd of a couple hundred on blankets and lawn chairs, behind all that the river with the old bridge which is nothing less than part of who I am, the wooded shores of Wisconsin as a backdrop to it all.
I didn’t see a single face that I recognized, yet many of the people seemed familiar. The people of my hometown aren’t much different than the people I see every day in St. Paul and elsewhere, but yet… They are comfortable where I am comfortable: at home.
Pointing out the sunset which was obvious to anyone looking at the stage, saying, “Look at that pretty sunset.” And then as always, the sunset I had commented on revealing that it was only the beginning and moments later the evening cloud bands flaring into bright orange tiers.
The night was finally cool after so many hot. Wearing jeans and a sweater (and sandals) as August approaches, thinking that summer has apexed though surely it will be hot again. Already my mind has turned toward September.
I went through a few phases of the evening. From having no expectations to realizing how lovely it was, then to trying a little too hard to soak it all in, to being mad at myself for trying a little too hard to soak it all in, then a subconscious shift where I was just there, with my family, enjoying life, knowing that home is in the details, and that with open eyes you can always find those details.
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4 Comments
This post painted a wonderful picture. I wish I had a hometown like that to go back to; I feel like a total alien in the first-ring suburb where I grew up.
I can totally relate to the “phases”; do you ever have the feeling that, just as you’re entering a state where you’re living in the moment and enjoying it, you become aware of that state and that awareness kind of ruins it.
Bum, a nice rememory of our evening. Deb, I know what you mean about living in the moment and ruining it by recognizing what’s going on.
Deb, I firmly believe that home is home, no matter if it’s a neighborhood in the city, a suburb, or a small town. We all can only have one home (with obvious exceptions), so I think the best thing to do is get to know that place as well as you can, and decide what it’s role is going to be in your life. I’m still working on that, but I know I love a lot about Stillwater. Anyway, you seem to be doing a fantastic job of creating a home for your family, which is something I really admire.
“do you ever have the feeling that, just as you’re entering a state where you’re living in the moment and enjoying it, you become aware of that state and that awareness kind of ruins it.”
All the time.
Thanks, bum! I do find myself feeling more and more at home in this area, and enjoying the little things like running into people I know at the grocery store or chatting with my neighbor on the road in the morning.