My Hometown

I just spent the weekend with various members of my family unit up in New England, and I am writing this entry from my sister's house in Massachusetts, as her dog Meeka (half pug, half sharpe) snores loudly from the next room. Everyone else is in bed.

I try to make it back "home" two or three times a year. Usually for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and once during the summer. No matter where you are from, and where you live now, the place where you grew up, where you experienced your childhood (for better or worse) is special to you. Each time I return to the small, tranquil N.H. town where I grew up, I get mixed emotions. Upon seeing familiar streets, houses, and people from my childhood, the emotion I feel most powerfully is that of bittersweet nostalgia. There's my old grade school. The town common. A.'s house. The house where my parents live. The road in front of my parents' house, where my father taught my how to ride a bike and drive a car. My old high school. The neighborhood yards where we played Whiffle Ball, Kick the Can, Ghost in the Graveyard, and Starsky & Hutch. I literally feel my heart tug when I see these places again.

Coming back home invariably makes me sad because I feel the heavy weight of the passage of time with each visit. Neighbors have moved away, and new developments have come in where there used to just be fields. My parents look older. I look older. I look at my face in the bathroom mirror, notice the receding hairline, the silvery white hairs starting to creep in at my temples, and the crows feet starting to appear in the corners of my eyes. My mind spins when I think back to how young I used to look when I stared into that very same mirror as a little boy, with a full mop of too-long black hair, and my entire life ahead of me. Or as a self-conscious teenager applying copious amounts of hair mousse and/or gel and spritzing on the Drakkar Noir before a big high school dance. (As if they helped.)

The house that I grew up in, which seemed enormous to me as a child, now feels so small. Almost like a dollhouse. My parents, whose physical and emotional presence was strong and powerful when I was young, have grown old before my eyes. How much longer will I have them? Where did the years go?

My childhood friends have grown older too, and to see them having children is utterly surreal. The same people who were getting drunk at parties, shooting off M-80s in people's yards at midnight, and having snowball fights in cars as soon as they got their driver's licenses -- activities in which I fully and enthusiastically participated -- are now procreating and raising their spawn as the next American generation. It's scary.

Coming home is not purely a melancholy experience, though. Returning always reminds me that I have roots in a place that I will always know and understand. A place that has changed, to be sure, but not all that much. The grass is still very green and the trees very tall. The air still gets unbearably humid in summer and freeze-your-ass-cold in winter. The rugged seacoast still looks beautiful, as does the foliage in the fall. The seafood is incredibly cheap compared to New York, and so is everything else. The people still have that somewhat aloof and provincial New England approach to life, and they are still wearing too much L.L. Bean, Timberland, and Red Sox/Patriots/Celtics garb for my taste. But for the most part, they are simple, sincere, and real. They do not put on airs, and they don't give a shit about how much money you make. An asshole is still an asshole, especially if you're a rich, ignorant asshole trying to tell people what to do. This is why people like George Bush Sr. and Jr. run into problems during the New Hampshire primary. Stupidity and insincerity do not mix well in New Hampshire, or anywhere in New England for that matter. Live Free or Die, baby.

New York City, the place where I live now, is the polar opposite of my New Hampshire hometown. Where New Hampshire is calm, clean, quiet, and affordable, New York is loud, polluted, hyperactive, stinky, crowded, chaotic, and expensive. As a fan of every New England sports team, I grew up hating New York. I was taught that New York was arrogant, dirty, noisy, dangerous, and downright scary. While I was listening to my sister's "Grease" record in the safety my parents' house, "Son of Sam" was busy killing people in New York. That kind of shit just didn't happen in New Hampshire. I remember watching "Welcome Back Kotter," where at the beginning of the show they show scenes of New York City and Brooklyn, and thinking to myself, "What a fucking shithole. Why would anyone want to live there?" I remember seeing pictures of the graffiti on the subways. Hearing about the crime. Seeing the burned-out Bronx on television. Not for me. Nosirree.

In light of the above, I suppose that it is a bit strange that I now live in New York -- Brooklyn, actually -- and I love it. New York is the best city in the world, and I never want to leave. Actually, my relationship with New York is more of a love-hate relationship, one which I will explore in more detail in a future entry. There is probably some psychological reason why I am drawn to the chaos of the City and why it has gotten into my blood the way it has. I've learned that New York seems to attract a certain kind of person. I have been in New York for 14 years, and I consider New York my home now.

But you can only have one Hometown. For me, that place is not New York. It is the bittersweet, nostalgic place of my childhood. The place where I was born and raised and became the person I am today.