We All Support The Team

I was once instructed, in the early days of my elementary career, that all works of writing should begin with an introduction. Back then, every time we sat down with a blank stretch of paper before us, a printed "thought map" would be placed on our desks as well, for all writing should be planned. all writing should be precise. and all writing should be correct.
On more than one occasion, i would be lightly scolded for my habit of ignoring the planning process completely. While my classmates, all of which i was relatively close with, for a small town only has so many children per class, were staring into space trying to grasp ideas that would look legitimate on their maps, and be considered a four, or atleast a three, on their final rubric, I would be scrawling down my final words on the lined paper, not planning, just writing the story i believed needed to be told.
Most of these stories did not begin how my teachers would have liked, which meant that they were often devoid of a proper introduction. i was often hasty to get down to the real story, and didn't find it reasonable to waste time explaining. it will all make sense in the end, just hang in there, keep your eyes open, and listen to my words.
I suppose I'll begin this story, with a small introduction, nonetheless, though it seems i got carried away already with what at first was going to be a single opening sentence. remember, i never plan the words i write.
My name is Erin Elaine S_____, and on this foggy summer night, i am thirteen years old, the eigth year of schooling approaching fast around the corner it seems i'm never ready to turn in to. As i write, i am sprawled on a kelly green fouton, staring out at a half curtained window at a single backyard in the town in which i call home. It's a small town, with a small cast of characters to tell its tale, a small setting, indeed, but a big plot. one in which, as each day goes by, you still remain on the edge of your seat.
In novels and movies, small towns hold all of the secrets of the biggest cities on the globe, small towns contain the tragedy and emotion not even a Nicholas Sparks novel can capture. in fiction, these little towns seem to play a large role.
fairytales will tell you that any soon to be princess will be found in a place very much like the modern suburbs, a place where she is lost and alone, and more times than other, begging desperately for an escape.
Taylor Swift will tell us that her knight in shining armor hasn't come yet because he simply can't find her, for she's hidden in a place so unfashionable and unglamorous. And in order to maintian a poetic rythm, she'll say her prince will never come, because in a small town, fairytales and the fulfillment of a dream, is practically nonexistent.
But in reality, most people will tell you that they love the tiny town they're a part of. they love walking down humble streets and allys, waving at every familiar face, smiling at those they've never seen before, but who almost certainly is somehow related to your next door neighbor, for in a small town, there are no outsiders. everyone knows eachother. you can't keep a secret, because someone will surely see you in the act itself.
in a small town, there are no strangers. you will stand in line at the local ice cream parlor, only to give your order to a teenage girl you've probably known your whole life. when you turn around, you'll smile at your old high school chums, holding on to the sticky hands of your children, when one of them cries they've dropped their cone on the pavement. "one moment!" yells the voice of one of your fathers old friends from his truck window, which has just pulled in to the busy lot. "i'm the owners brother. i'll get you a new one."
you see, in a small town like mine, there are connections, just like the waterways or the eco system, which in its own way, the town is in itself. Your brother probably went to pre school with your boss, your cousin probably washes the mayors car, your neighbor is probably on a first name basis with the banker.
i began to pick up on the ways of small town life while i was still very young, just after i realized the town was not the entire world, just a small corner. my corner. i noticed that my father, a long time Geography teacher at the high school, seemed to know the name of everyone we'd see at the famous little mini mart in town. like the teachers who had taught me about the craft of writing, my dad had been teaching these people for years. he'd gone to school himself with some, and a few years later, he'd see their children in class in front of him, as well.
The year i turned five, the world grew. no longer were the only people i ever saw those of my own neighborhood, no longer was the only terrain beneath my feet that of my own backyard. when i began kindergarten, i had been shocked to discover that there were so many citizens like myself in the town i'd always thought of as just my own.
On my first day of school, i wore a plaid purple dress with a white turtle neck benath it, loose and rumpled near my skinny neck, my short bobbed brown hair always a little frizzy as my footsteps grew faster throughout the day.
I sat down in class, surrounded by red nosed little faces, everyone in their nicest new clothes, everyone hugging the book bags they've waited their whole lives to purchase.
I was so young, but i wanted to be older. I was uneducated, but i believed i was smart. I was alone, but i felt as if i had all the friends in the world. My life was beginning. My world was growing.
At recess i would play simpleminded games in the grass, jumping off of the swingsets, racing the little boys with cooties, little boys who would grow up to become some of the best friends i could ever have wished for.
In a few years, all of us began to grow up a little.
In first grade, my friends and i would circle around, verbalizing the big city dreams the “big kids” would have claimed impossible. When i was six, i wanted to be an author/ illustrator of childrens books, which were really the only books i knew of at the time. I admired writers like Mary Pope Osborn, who would take me wherever i wanted if i just stepped into her tree house; Beverly Cleary, who told me about a clumsy little girl named Juny B. Of course, there were also the stories my mom would read to me before bed each night, as she held on to me, and i held on to the words.
My favorite story was called “Geuss how much i love you”, and it focused on two small brown rabbits beneath a tree, betelling the ancient tale of a mothers love.
I never understood why my mother loved it so much, why she referred to its words so often. But as i grew older, as i grew to love more sincerely, i began to understand. And i vowed that one day, i would create for her a story even better.
When i was in fourth and fifth grade, when i was thrown into the dramas every girls life is filled with at some time, i began to notice my town a little more. As everyone i had known since i was five started to grow up, started to loose the kid they once were, i began to get to know myself a little better.
For one thing, i never understood the pleasure of gossip and screts. I never felt it neccessary to find humor in anothers mistakes, and i never thought it easy to tell my secrets to girls whos friendship i knew wasn't true.
So i took refuge, refuge from it all. I read. And for a few moments at a time, i wouldn't be the awkward pre teen i was. I wasn't alone, surrounded by those i thought of as my “friends”, and i wasn't self councious about the things i said or did. I was me. I was safe. I was happy. And i was home.
I remember the day i cried for the first time when reading. The book was none other than JK Rowling's Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, and i had awaited the story for years. I remember clutching the already worn covers between my hands, crying and willing the words not to be true. But at the same time, i loved it. I loved the feeling of guiltless tears rolling down my cheeks. I loved the way it felt to cry for a soul who wouldn't punish me for it later, who wouldn't laugh at the redness of my cheeks. The tears that fell were tears i would remember forever, and as i grew older, i would remember every time a story made me cry ever again.
A few years later, when the final days of elementary school were drawing nearer, i would begin to understand myself just a little more. I would begin to understand the people i'd grown up with, the small town i was proud to be a part of.
That year, i discovered the words within me. Though i had always admired the craft of storytelling, this was the year where my passion and my abilities finally met for real, and i began to write down everything i was feeling. No, not in a diary, but in poems and stories where i could easily hide any of my emotions by adding a false name to them all. Within these stories, i formed a home seperate from the one i had in books, and seperate from the small town life i lived in reality.
In these worlds, i could alter my life however i wanted, change it as much as i pleased, and it wouldn't matter, because no one would see it but me. I could write about my secrets, and not worry about them being told, though i never really had any major secrets, anyway. My life was one i chose to keep open for all to see, almost like the open books in which i am so in love with.
On the last day of sixth grade, i took a look around me.
I saw...a classroom filled with no more than 25 adolescents.
But we were diferent. Most kids our age were selfless and standoffish, while we were all the best of friends, boy and girls alike. We would all miss eachother, and we would all be at eachothers side next september when high school started, and our lives opened up to a new chapter.
On that last day, i wrote poem after poem, story after story, about the way i was feeling. Nervous. Excited. Proud. Accomplished. Scared. Terrified...reminiscent.
it's finally over, i remember thinking. Ever since i was five years old i dreamt of this day. I pictured myself in skirts, with a perfect smile, and a circle of friends and enemies.
But nothing had really changed. I'd just grown up. I was still me, still friends with everyone i said hi to, still in love with words and pictures, simple and open. The only major difference, was that now i had a small group of friends i knew for once were true.
The class was the first to be dismissed that day, and the teachers would whisper with teary eyes to us on our way to the buses, that they were proud. “you're finally a true towner, now, you know. This is home.”
and they were right.
We were home. Home in the tiny town we'd grown up in.
For five years previous, i had been melodramtic, exasperated in my unrealistic cravings to see the world outside of the town. I had dreamt of the magical places like paris, venice, ireland...but i'd forgotten about the little piece of magic i was apart of right here, right now.
As summer ended, and i discovered that high school was much easier than it seemed, my friends and i began to think about the lives we had ahead of us, the dreams we wished were more within our reach, though still seemd, in hindsight, to be miles away.
I remember circling up, like we had so many years ago in kindergarten, only now we were taller with boys in the circle as well, and we talked about our dreams. We laughed as we noticed that we sounded just like the five year olds we still were at heart. Some of us still said things like astronaut and chef, only now, they seemed more personal. More real. We were old enough to know what we wanted. I was dissapointed when the circle reached a girl who simply shrugged and said that she'd probably end up as “ a secretary or something.” when we asked why she would ever dream of something as dull as that, she would gigle and tell us she was only being realistic. And we were not.
But she was wrong, i still say. Our dreams are more real than you can imagine. They speak for us, they light the path for us....they are us. And we'd be nothing, nowhere without them. We'd still be the kindergarteners, stumbling along, dreaming big, but wanting nothing more than a snack. We'd still be those kids the others gossiped about behind our backs, and all we wanted was relief of the drama.
But with our dreams, we were more than that. We were ourselves, for once.
Everytime i try to imagine my future, i picture myself the same as i am now, only maybe a little taller. In my dreams, i am married to some exotic artist who tells me every morning that he loves me, we have 2 perfect little girls so smart and talented, and we live in the most beautiful home ever built, the walls covered in artwork and photographs. When the girls leave for school, i presume to the couch or the desk, where i will write stories all day, and have not a care in the world. Because everthing has fallen into place. Because My dreams have come true.
And after a while, my dream will hit a dead end. Where is this perfect house? Where am i living the life i pray to lead?
And no matter how hard i try to imagine a life outside of this town, i can't bear it. This is home. This is forever. My friends will go where their jobs and spouses take them, and i'll probably end up doing the same, but right now, that picture seems impossible to comprehend. I have so many dreams, so many hopes, prayers, wishes. I want to see the world, i want to meet new people and be known, but at the same time, i don't want to leave.
I'd miss ambling down the streets to see the faces of my neighbors smiling back at me. I'd miss waking up each morning with a smile as i imagined the perfect day that awaited me at school. I'd miss staring out the window at my back yard, always filled with neighbor kids and dogs. I'd miss closing my eyes on a hot summers night, and listening to the frogs croak in a harmonic, throaty song in the woods behind my house. I'd miss fighting with my little brother over every little action i took. I'd miss coming home afer a long day, and jumping onto my bed with a notebook or novel. I'd miss life. I'd miss myself. I'd miss my family. The people that had taught me everything i'd ever known. I'd miss that feeling of contentment and safety i felt whenever i was home, whether that home were my house, my books, or my stories. I'd miss myself too much. Because if i ever left, i knew i wouldn't stay me forever.
This town, this small stretch of land invisible on your maps, this unexciting landscape of farmers and townies, where the biggest news involves the oil spill ten thousand miles away, the politics we hardly affect at all, the stars we all dream about but can't reach because we're so far away....its me. Its life. Its forever. If i were anywhere but here, i wouldn't be the girl i am becoming.
I'd have the same name, i'd have the same face. But i would not have the same heart, the same soul, the same mind, the same outlook.
Everyone in this world, is only who they are, because of where they are. Celebrities are overworked and rich because of the city in which they are resident. Farmers, landowners, store managers...look at their lives, and then imagine them minus the place they call home. They're not themselves anymore, are they?
A few weeks ago, i read a Stephen King novel titled Under The Dome, which focused almost entirely on the workings of a small town. There was a police force, a dingy diner everyone ate at after work, a small hospital with two doctors, three town selectman, and any other type of small town civilian, all a character, all a castmate, in the story of a small town. And at the end of each page, i would notice that i was picturing the town to look just like my own. Because it was all so true.
Even before i read this book, i found myself thinking about small town life quite a bit, but afterwards, the intensity of my daydreams multiplied.
Everyone in this town...is part of a single team.
Throughout the novel, King recites a quote from a popular James McMurtry song numerous times within the story. “It's a small town,” it reads, “You know what i mean? It's a small town, son, and we all support the team.”
my town, my family...my home. We're a team. We all support one machine that is larger than life, and still growing. We all sing the same song, we all walk the same streets, we all go to the same places, we all support the same team.
The team of the town.
And now, we've reached the part of this story, where i will bring us to a standstill, for now. We've reached the part of the story where i am thirteen years old, just months from fourteen, and the summer is starting to fade away. In the fall, i return to the school so many people say they hate, but they know they love, in their hearts. Because its the school where they've become themselves. Its the single school in the small town they will always have a place in.
There you have it, the story of my small town life. It may not be glamorous or dramatic, but its me, all the same. Before you, is the portait i've been struggling to paint for nearly fourteen years.
Long ago, when this picture was almost a blank canvas, i was instructed that every story should end in a conclusion. I was taught by small town elementary school teachers, that all writing should be planned. All writing should be prescise. And all writing should be correct.
So now, i float around in my memories, and try to come up with an adequate conclusion, though we both know that wish won't turn out as planned. but it will all make sense in the end, just hang in there, keep your eyes open, and listen to my words.
For i often forget about the rules. I often skip ahead, to the story i believe needs to be told, remember. I always run, and i never walk.
But no matter how fast i go, no matter how far i run, i won't end up too far away, i promise. Because i'll never leave home. I'll never leave this town, and i'll never leave myself.
Because no matter the big city dreams, i'm just a little person, in a little town. And that little town will give me all i will ever want.
Because it's a small town, and we all support the team.