Community

Wherein Our Heroine Puts Down Roots.

I don't like waiting at the best of times. I really don't like waiting to see who is going to be President. That is all I am going to say about the actual election part of the election.

I grew up in a small town. It has grown larger, and as I have mentioned before, it is no longer the little town I grew up in. I have lived in a variety of places since I left the nest, never really putting down roots however long I stayed. It was always a source of wonder to go back to Hollis and inevitably run into people I knew at the small collection of shops in the center of town. I never looked for that sense of community elsewhere - I suppose I assumed it took at least a decade of living in a place to have that wide mantle of community thrown over you, to have your anonymity peeled away by acquaintanceship and caring.

We have lived in our current home for just a little over two years. It is a typical, sprawling suburban community, the kind of place where you are almost startled to see your next-door neighbor in the grocery store or at the post office. But standing at the polls yesterday, I saw a huge collection of neighbors coming in and out of the elementary school where voting was set up. Many stopped by for a chat or even a hug. I knew them. They knew me.

Without even realizing it, I have become a part of this community. It feels strangely like home.

Posted: Wednesday - November 03, 2004 at 07:46 AM | |