We Live Where We Are

While I wholly agree with Casey's sentiments below, I feel like there needs to be some mention, some documentation of the things that went right. To be honest, I have anger about the last two years. I could go on and on about the disappointments, the connections I intended to make with people who weren't available, the rejections, the bafflement, etc., but really, I am just grateful to feel like myself again. To not feel like an outsider anymore, to live in a city where one in four people are foreign-born, and to work (albeit temporarily, but who knows!) in an awesome environment with brilliant people. These are all serious blessings.

Back to my ever elusive point, there were good things about Hagerstown. I met the wives of Casey's friends from his high school days and found that we shared an uncanny number of things in common. Jenni, the gamine creative genius who taught me everything I know about making jewelry, and whose company I miss whenever I'm doing what we do best: making jewelry while watching movies and drinking massive amounts of Earl Grey. She introduced me to Samantha, the proudly West Virginian art teacher who is making a killing selling her whimsical jewelry on Etsy. She told me about a tree stump near her mom's place in WV that if you put a $20 on, will mysteriously produce a bottle of homemade moonshine a couple of hours later. And of course the indomitable Laura Mae, who on our first meeting, burst into friends' apartment after a night of square dancing and sleeping in the back of a pick-up, with twigs and leaves in her long red hair and mud caked on her cowboy boots. A total Southern babe and an old soul, she's someone I can spend hours talking to and never run out of things to say.



I also learned more things about Casey from observing him with his family. His annoying habit of speed walking down airport terminals with me several feet behind? Totally learned behavior from his dad, Terry. His insistence on being at the gate 45 minutes before they start seating the plane? That would be Terry too. His brother, Corey, shares the same good natured distinctive laugh and curious tendency to rub their feet together when watching movies. All Broadwaters love applesauce and pudding. This information is somehow useful to me.



I miss the spooky summer thunder storms, the fireflies, the wild raspberries and all the old pre-civil war era houses. Back there, roads have actual names, not just numbers. I miss Casey's grandma Marlene, who just loves on people and has a faith that makes my eyes water just hearing her talk about it. Like Casey, she's also a fantastic storyteller. As is her husband, Carroll, who will stoically sit at the table with a toothpick hanging out of his mouth and say the most hilarious (and controversial) things and with the family erupts in laughter and incredulity, he'll look over at me with a sly wink. John, the generous, hardworking grandpa who always keeps a pen in his shirt pocket and has the kindest eyes I've ever seen. And of course, Retha, who bares an uncanny resemblance to Casey and accepted me into her family as a granddaughter. She shares my fascination with traveling and the English Royals. She even gave me her Charles and Di wedding collector dolls for Christmas and would look through my Japanese scrapbooks with me on a regular basis.



These things meant so much.