On Being a Small-Town Girl

Feeling honored today to be featured on the main page of Baristanet, my town’s local website. You can go here to read it: baristanet.com.

This came about because of my husband’s #EverySingleStreet project. Some of you may know that Steven was a runner before I was…and then around the time I had to get surgery for my injured toe (see https://www.myfatherslist.com/blog/2020/4/17/on-patience), he got REALLY into running. I’m so glad that he did. For a while there, I thought of running as something I did alone. It was my therapy before doing this project and writing this book was.

But running together with my husband has proven to be excellent therapy for enduring this pandemic. I was a little scared at first because people kept asking me how I would finish this project. Not that this was truly a concern for anyone….but the typical assumption was that I would not. But I set a deadline of December 31, 2020, and that deadline is going to be met.

The only two of the remaining 18 list items that can’t be done here at home are “Visit Vienna and Dresden/Berlin.” Fortunately, I’ve started every section of the book with a lyric from Billy Joel’s “Vienna,” and supposedly Vienna is a place that waits for people….so if that trip has to be postponed until after my deadline, so be it. My dad wrote that he hoped to live until “at least” the year 2020. (Thanks for that “at least,” Dad.)

But the rest are being completed right here in Montclair, for as long as we’re stuck here….kidding, I actually love where I live.

I haven’t posted much here the past few weeks because I wanted to be sure of what I might write. Early on, it was very easy for people to opine about the pandemic with very little actual information about it. David Brooks wrote an Op-Ed for the New York Times about that today. I think he covered it pretty well.

I told Steven early on I wanted to be careful about what I wrote about this. I told him I could chronicle my experience of it, but I couldn’t comment on it. Governor Cuomo said the other day that lots of people have opinions these days, but he's more interested in facts. I didn’t want to be one more privileged person putting out an unfounded opinion.

I did find, though, that many of the lessons this project had given me found me better prepared to endure months indoors and uncertainty than I might have been otherwise. Much of how I’ve been spending this time has come from My Father’s List philosophies—with my project, I never know what is going to happen next. I’ve found a comfort level with this and even enjoy it.

For example, I never would have expected to have an article about my project on Baristanet. And that only happened because I asked Steven if I could join him with his running. We’re running every road in our town—that’s 125 miles—for the whole month of May, and one week of June. He’s raising money for Woodstock Farm Sanctuary doing it. With sanctuaries closed to the public, the animals are hurting, too. Some of you know my husband’s an animal rights activist and I joined him in his cause two years ago when I went vegan (I’d called myself 75 percent vegan for eight years….which was basically nonsense, but every bit helps). I know how hard it is to make a major life shift like that…but then again, how can you know until you try? Lots of people are finding sources of joy in this pandemic that they never knew were there the rest of the time.

Finishing my dad’s bucket list, more than anything, has taught me about the power of making choices. We live in such a fast-paced world where so many things are taken care of for us or at least made easier by modern technology that we sometimes forget we are constantly making choices.

This pandemic is a traumatic experience for everyone, in varying degrees. I will never call it a gift. But if you want to survive it and keep your sanity, look at your choices. The emotional weight of the experience can be victimizing…and the more you stay in the mind-set of “what is happening to me?” the harder it will be. Life gets a lot easier when you focus more on “What can I make happen?”

No matter how small, you must have some feeling of agency.

You have to feel like you are doing something about your situation.

I’m grateful to live in a town that permits my husband and me to run its streets safely. I’m grateful I can go out and breathe the fresh spring air (through my face mask…unless we are on a desolate street where nobody is around). I’m grateful I can get some exercise and become a runner again, despite my surgery recovery. I’m grateful that even in a time of losing so much, I’ve managed to gain something new.

I’m grateful to all of you for encouraging us.

So much of this experience has reminded me of my favorite times with my father, just exploring the woods in parks in our small town of Wilmington, Delaware. My dad had big ideas but he was a small-town guy. I know he’d love that I’m finally finding my place in mine.

Thanks again to Kristin Wald at Baristanet for writing this.

I’ve had a few other interviews recently—two podcasts, a photo shoot with Adrian Bacolo and the cover story of the April issue of University of Delaware Magazine! I’ve been waiting to receive my copy in the mail before I write about those….but here’s a sneak peek from the clips my aunt in Delaware sent me today.

I’ve always been a small-town girl at heart.

More to come soon. Hope everyone is staying safe and sane.