I grew up in the classic New England town. Colorful shops and restaurants line both Center and Main Streets, there’s the spire of a church here and there, and busy people split there time between walking and driving. As a member of the third generation of my family to be raised here, people know me, and I’d been introduced to most of them at an early age. If we don’t know each other well, they’ll say, “Hey, you’re Holroyd’s granddaughter,” and then begin to ramble on about Holroyd’s furniture, our family’s old store that was down on Main, back in the day.
Just a short walk away, however, there is silence. On a summer day, you can find it via a quiet walk through the woods, and up to the town water tower, looking out over the rolling green hills and abrupt, glacially shaped traprock ridges of the Connecticut River Valley. In winter, the dense white blanket of snow and the crisp sting of the air bring the silence just a little closer. This silence encourages passion. This silence provokes a wandering mind.
It is a mix of these two places that I call home. Of course home is where the heart is and where my family is, right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Wallingford, CT, but home is also the place where I can think about what I want to do and who I want to be.
When I’m older, I don’t know if I’ll live close by. Even now, as I search for a place to continue my education, the closest schools I’m considering are about two hours away. But home will always be where the heart is, and until I get back to the place where my family resides and my passion for the world around me was built, I will be a wanderer.