That title doesn’t really make much sense, but I didn’t feel like just writing “a blast from the past”. Too cliched and lacking in creativity. But it’s late (or early) and I’m not really that creative at the moment. I’m just motivated to write.
I was chatting with a friend who happened to pass through my home town of Squamish, British Columbia earlier today. She’s involved with a fantastic organization called Green Kids, which I won’t dwell on as you can visit the site, and they’re touring the Howe Sound School District, which was the system I came up through until leaving for St. Michaels University School in Victoria. So on a whim, I fired up the district’s Web site to see who was still teaching that I might remember (and might remember me), and it turned out that there were a few familiar names. So I decided to fire off an e-mail to say hello and reconnect.
Times like this that I miss my small town. When I was younger, I thought I would always live there. Even though I wasn’t the most outdoorsy person, I could just see myself being happy there. Finding a way to be a big part of the community. But I guess the world had other plans for me.
Sometimes I wish I had become a teacher. I would love to be an elementary teacher…I just think that would be a very rewarding profession. And if I were going to do so, I’d want to be in a small town. Larger cities just don’t feel the same. They lack the sense of social cohesiveness that I associate with small towns. Or maybe it’s just Squamish. Or maybe it’s just the cities I’ve lived in.
Suffice to say that as populations grow, it becomes more and more difficult to hold onto the things that make up a community. Instead, you get a group of separate communities, all contributing to a larger whole but with a degree of interaction that simply isn’t as complete or satisfying.
As the sitcom theme song says, “sometimes you wanna go, where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.”
Cheesy, yes, but I think that single line stands out as one of the all-time memorable and meaningful lyrics. at least to me, if no one else.
This doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. I’ve got a pretty decent life going for me in Kitchener-Waterloo…I’m just aware of what I’ve given up.
And who knows? Maybe one of these days I’ll find myself back in Squamish, or someplace like it. Time will tell.
Have you been to Squamish lately? It is not the town we grew up in. It is big, it is busy, it is generic(Walmart and Home Depot opened there this week) and when I moved I didn’t know any of my neighbours!
Squamish has grown so fast and in a slightly strange way, in that most of the people who live there don’t work there, and as a result don’t spend a lot of time there. I think that is a key part in why it is not a close knit community anymore.
That said, I do think it will come back. I left a few years ago, and I no longer recognize Squamish, it changes everytime I go back (about every couple of months). I think it is going through some growing pains at the moment, but once things settle down and adjust it will come back together… at least I hope so!