Our Broken Driveway (a.k.a. Life in a Small Town)

My husband and I knew one another at least 20 years before we became a couple and got married, but in fact, he remembers me from even earlier than that: although we didn’t actually meet, we were at the same university when he was just finishing his masters and I was just starting a bachelor in education. We were talking one day about our university experiences when all of a sudden, he exclaimed, “Oh, YOU were the girl who used to walk around looking at her feet!”.

Painfully shy, the two years I attended that university were the loneliest years of my life. Because I have never made friends effortlessly, I spent a lot of time with my head down, just trudging from one class to the next. Watching my feet was easier than looking up and facing the fact that I had almost no friends or social life.

When I moved to Québec City – a notoriously difficult city to integrate into – I spent the first 15 years or so pretty much the same way. Back in those early days, I had a lot of colleagues whom I cared for and called friends, but our social activities never extended to after hours. You can be completely anonymous in Québec City. People are courteous but also wary and aloof: no one does ‘small talk’ with a stranger. They do not look at you and you do not look at them.

The culture shock when we moved back to New Brunswick was immense. This was our home province so we knew that people tended to be friendly and kind, but my husband grew up in the roughest city in the province and I had left my good-sized town when I was 18: all my experience with socializing had been in high school, with a group of friends I had known since grade 6. Nothing prepared us for the complete and utter lack of invisibility that happens when you move into a (very) small town.

I am dreadful at names – always have been – and usually place a face but can’t recall where I have met the person. It is so strange to me that pretty much everyone here knows who we are, where we came from and why we are here. Mind you, they all ask anyway (who we are, where we came from and why we are here): there is always the chance of picking up a bit of gossip that no one else has heard yet.

It can be a bit disconcerting, though, meeting people for the first time who already feel they know a lot about you. Recently, my husband went shopping two towns up the river and – as one is wont to do around these parts – he had a nice conversation with the lady behind the counter before completing his purchase. It didn’t matter that he was meeting her for the first time; that is how folks are around these parts: warm, welcoming and friendly. To his surprise, however, just as he was leaving, she asked, “So is the town going to be doing something about your driveway? It looks pretty bad. You must be very upset.”

The thing is, we have indeed been very upset about the driveway. All winter, the snow plough man kept ploughing as far in as the shoulder of the street; the result being that he kept hitting – and then chipping away at – our driveway. By spring, huge, heavy chunks of asphalt from both sides of our driveway were either on our lawn or strewn halfway up the street. What surprised my husband was that a woman working two towns away not only knew who he was; but knew where he lived; knew that that our yard was a mess and was neighbourly enough to ask him if the town was going to do something about it (I am happy to report: they are).

Now please do not get me wrong: after spending our adulthood living in an indifferent and impersonal city, coming to a place where everyone knows your name – not to mention your woes with the snow plough man – is…wonderful, refreshing and comforting. After 35 years of living with apathy and disinterest, we both feel a little like we have died and gone straight to heaven. Yes, we have lost all anonymity: we are aware that it would be wise for us to mind our ‘p’s and ‘q’s, as they say, because everyone will be aware if we stray from the straight and narrow.

Nonetheless, let it be said, for the record, that neither of us would trade this for the world…

Source of photo

Patti Moore Wilson © wednesdayschildca.wordpress.com

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