Why I'm Glad I Was Born Somewhere Boring

reflecting on the discourse of The West Village Girls & the effort of attention no matter where you live

While I now live in Boston, I grew up in a town quite literally named Normal, Illinois. It is a college-sized town, decidedly in central Illinois and in no way deemed a Chicago suburb. It is the relative hub of a bunch of smaller towns that are in within an hour or two driving distance. Growing up, I had neither the rural idyll nor the excitement of the city. There were was going to the local Steak’n’Shake (which was founded there!), riding bikes on trails, being bored at the mall. Yet, there was a gift in this that I think about a lot now that I live somewhere that has a relative abundance of beauty and riches (the ocean, nearby islands and mountains, the city itself). In my small town fun was something we actively made, and as an adult I think it was not just despite but perhaps because of its lack of obvious charm that this view of the world grew in us as kids.

It is easy to romanticize New York City, to desire the aesthetic performance as is being discussed right now online after The Cut’s “It Must Be Nice to Be A West Village Girl” article came out. It is easy to romanticize Mary Oliver’s corner of Provincetown, her romantic jaunts out into the sea, into the woods, along the ponds, listening with a notebook and a quickhand. It is difficult to romanticize a concrete high school parking lot, leaving volleyball practice in the middle of August knowing you AND your best friend are not so good. It takes some level of imagination and attention to turn something ordinary into something fun, memorable, delightful. While the plains of the midwest do have a charm that truly does tug on my sense of beauty, what my home in the midwest had was something that is a rarity in a big city or in the constant buzz of an online world—bored, and time.

I don’t have a grand solution to this reflection, as much as a noticing that when we are drawn into cultures on and offline that provide constant beauty, entertainment, and intrigue, it’s not a huge surprise we don’t have the capacity and intuition to get bored and stay there long enough for something weird, funny, or beautiful to happen.

me when I leave myself enough time and space to notice small things (from Sally’s Room, by Mary K. Brown)

Today’s Reading: The Work of Local Culture, a lecture from Iowa that Wendell Berry gave in 1988 that speaks to the work of attention to place in actively being in community

Today’s Journal Prompt: What do you love about the place you grew up?

Today’s Tiny Challenge: Is there a place you love where you live now? A place where you don’t quite know why you haven’t gone to more, as you love it each time you go? Consider the value of repetition in becoming a regular, versus seeking newness too frequently.

Thanks, as always, for your time.

Margaret of Bad Art Every Day