Here are some thoughts I am working on around staying in/ leaving Salem, the place I've thought of as home for 26 years. It is hard to know what to do, when giving carriage rides here has become so much harder than it once was.
Townies
When my daughter was in high school she had a boyfriend, and as many parents do, I scrutinized the poor kid mercilessly. We all think our daughters are special, and as a self designated protector of our grand children's gene pool, I thought the guy was not special enough. He was not in the A.P. classes. He had a rougher taste in movies than we usually screened at home. He had a pessimist's outlook, and a biting wit. He refused to let his girlfriend meet his family. In all, he was less than I had hoped for in a possible mate, and a perfect accomplice for my daughter to rebel and break away. The subject of what a Townie was came up one evening when he allowed as how he had been on a trip far afield- to Salisbury. I laughed at how small his known world was. We debated what it meant to be a "townie". To him it was a derogatory label. I had to backpedal and explain that I didn't think townies were dumb, but perhaps limited in their experience, even in their curiosity. How could someone live their life never seeking an opportunity to see a foreign country, or another state for that matter? I've always thought that seeing how people live in other places enriches what one has to offer the folks back home, yet I had noticed how many Salemites took all their education right at Salem State, or another local college. It isn't a function of economic limitations either. Salem has a number of successful families whose members all live and work in close proximity, the children carrying on the family business, prospering side by side and enjoying each other's company. I look in envy on these families, and I have been to some of their gatherings, wondering at their comfortable relations with each other. That would never have been possible in my immediate family. We are scattered across the country, seeing each other infrequently by choice. Each of my parents settled far from their families, and I did too.
When my husband and I moved to Salem, I didn't feel as if I had a home, and I longed for one. I had lived in several places before settling here, making the answer to "where are you from?" more than one word. At my high school in western Mass, I made an immediate bond with the state, and never enjoyed going for vacations to my parents' home in New Jersey. My particular social group valued travel to faraway places, doing things like the Peace Corps. I used to quip at that time, upon parting with a friend, "well, see you on top of Mt Everest!". As fate would have it, I married a south shore native whom I met while in college in Boston. And by a family connection through my great aunts, Salem became my primary place of residence in 1983. One Sunday evening, while still in my first months of living here, I walked in the front gate while a light snow sifted down, and heard a fog horn sounding. This noise traveled straight down my earliest neural pathways and gripped me- I was born in a coastal town.
I didn't expect we would be here so long, but the blessing of our house, then the children and their schools proved to be a firm anchor. I had hoped to move to the Greenfield area and have the kids do high school there- but when the time came, job opportunities were slim. So we grew more connected to the community here as the years passed by. I started a business giving carriage rides, which gave me a chance to employ my kids and some of their friends as grooms and tourguides. It gave me a chance to realize a life long dream of owning a horse. We had already had a few pet chickens and foster lambs by this time, testing the legal limit of pet ownership within the city's residential zone. It seems I have a farm fascination.
As an adolescent my dreams for the future always included the outdoors and farming. I thought I might open a foster home on a farm and let working with animals be a part of the growing environment for the kids. I followed a course of study in education and working with children with special needs. I spent my first two years out of college teaching in the Appalachian mountains in Kentucky, where I milked a goat before going to school. Folks who lived in those narrow mountain hollows felt such a connection to their land. Folk songs dwelt on the theme of coal companies coming to strip mine on land which held generations of the same family buried in the family plot. The deed to the land had been bought a hundred years before from unsuspecting Grandpaw, by the smooth talking prospector. Here family connections were as much to the land, still being farmed, as to the extended family. The closeness of the mountain land was comforting, and the rare individual who left to go to state college in Lexington suffered painful withdrawal. Having such a strong sense of belonging to a place gave the young people a security which I had never known. I guess that's what roots are, and they can be generations long.
There were more farm chores for me in Quebec, where we lived in a rural community providing meaningful work to a group of mentally disabled adults. The French speaking community there was close-knit, full of names I would later recognize in Salem, the sound of them butchered by an american pronounciation. The simplicity of an open sky and fields was wonderful, and yet lonely. We missed the ocean. We moved on due to my husband's concern that he was in his late twenties, and had not yet committed to a career. We settled by chance in Salem, going through one of those magical doors that open on rare occasions in one's life, which allowed us to renovate a decrepit house in exchange for rent.
Coming to Salem gave my husband a chance to start a professional career. For me, it was time to start a home and family. Two children were born while I worked on our house room by room, investing sweat equity into our rented house that gave us an economic boost when we decided to purchase. Raising kids well was more important to me than a second income, so I got by with a small home business around educational toys. I nurtured a perennial garden, loving the fact that I would be around to see it develop from year to year. Homemade bread and lots of reading aloud filled in for more costly entertainment. We traveled by welcoming travelers, and exchange students, hearing their stories of home. Even while they were young, I was teaching my kids that the world is wide and full of people who do things differently from us.
How proud I am of those kids. Creative and never bored, they could spend hours in the house making their own entertainment. As they got ready to leave for college, I remember walking down town between the two of them, when the phrase "armed and dangerous" popped into my head. I felt just like I had a six-shooter on each hip. All the potential of their lives still mixing with mine. And then my kids did just what I had raised them to do. They took their curiosity and confidence and went off to build adult lives of their own. In Oregon. And suddenly it is I who have the parochial view, feeling so much a New Englander as to feel nervous when the topic of moving to the Northwest for retirement is broached. Oh, look who's the Townie now.
Having relationships is known as a support system. The strands of interconnection form a web which holds you up. For me, this web has become a restraint as well. I am wrapped up in my connections, unsure if I want to break them by moving away to a more horse friendly town where my carriage business could be viable. We have lost too much money on transporting the horses in and out of town each day. Moving away means losing of many of those daily relationships and starting over. It is hard to choose. So I'm hung up in my web of support, wanting to bring the country and the city together. Do I want to stay and continue being sewn into the fabric of this town, choosing to take up some other occupation? If I were to move, where else might I go?
How do we know where we belong? Without family connections, anywhere could be okay, you just carry your home inside yourself, and your choice to belong is the start in a new community. Some people make this move many times in their lives.
Can I be a Salem Townie? It was easy to be adopted as one of the town. Salem is not so exclusive as to require long generational roots in order to belong. But I am thrashing on the line, struggling with whether I want to belong. I don't think I can be content with this being the end of the road. I know there are more places to see and other windows I want to look out of. Since my kids have chosen to go on with their lives elsewhere, Salem and especially our house, has taken on a feeling of being passe, unwanted, behind the times. Now that they are gone belonging is an open question again, my validity doubly robbed by the death of horses who depended on me, and the financial difficulties of continuing the carriage work that gave me so much satisfaction. Human and equine, the little birds flew out of the nest, and my instinct is to fly away too. The feeling of inertia here is depressing. I don't want to be introduced at parties as "the lady who used to drive the horse and carriage".
We get to a certain age when we realize that it is less likely that we'll do that adventuresome thing that seemed so important when we were young. One feels time slipping and there is an assessment to be made of what really matters. I've realized that when I am at the end of my life, what I will regret never having tried is to own a farm. The years when I could build a carriage house and train a team of horses on my own land are passing. Some aspirations are harder to give up, and I know that I am not half done in my quest to be a better carriage driver, and a smarter horsewoman. Space in Salem for such things is all gone now. It appears as if I will have to leave if following my quest is to continue.
I think that a townie's strength is in knowing they can be happy right here. The feeling of belonging, in contrast with exploring, fills them. They have a sense of place that I have longed for. When self acceptance is weak, one might be bouyed by the sense that SOMEone wants you. The folks at home keep you in their collective memory, holding your story for you, reminding you of your past interactions, ready to bolster you when you're wobbly. Recently a contractor, looking at a job for me, when asked if he was born here, leaned against his truck and said, "yeah, I was born here, and I'll die here". His was a voice of peace and confidence- this was in no way a fate he was resigned to, but a choice he happily has made.
One morning last spring, I was standing at the cross walk in Riley plaza waiting for the light. On my right was Angela, the fierce lady with a white cane who so often has viciously rebuffed some poor soul like me who sought to do a good deed by helping her find her way across the street. Last summer I experienced a miracle with her, when she accepted the invitation for free wagon rides at the Maritime Festival. She sat for three trips round the block, rocking herself with animated excitement, chanting "clipitty clop, clippety clop". It is the only time I have ever seen her smile.
On my left was Ben, a young man who was in special needs preschool with my daughter. I had the pleasure of giving him and his friends a carriage ride through the Willows on his 16th birthday. He lives independently now, with a job at the YMCA that allows him to use his wonderful social skills. His prom photo shows a debonaire gentleman, suave even, his arms circling the waist of his date. Having known each of these people for many years, I felt supported, less lonely, "armed and dangerous even", as the light changed and we crossed the street, I being flanked by these two denizens of the town, repositories of my history.
What a pretty place for a drive... This little carriage will be moving to Rockport, because it is light, and there are many more hills than in Salem. There are lots of side roads without much traffic that I look forward to exploring as the warmer weather returns.
