Life in the sticks
Superman grew up in Smallville. Batman grew up in Gotham City. Superman left Smallville for Metropolis, but Batman stayed in Gotham City (although by all accounts, he ended up in the suburbs). As an early devotee of comic books (although not of early comic books -- the furthest back I can remember is the semi-forgettable ROM the Space Knight, who looked vaguely like an Art Deco refrigerator), I used to pore over every last word and exciting punch, jab, and snappy rejoinder (I liked Spider-Man a lot, too). Obviously, these people, after having been in a big city long enough, were on the move to bigger and better things.
I grew up in a fairly small town -- about 8 000 people or so -- in the rural northwest. We didn't get a curb in front of our house until the year before I graduated from high school. McDonald's finally discovered us when I was sixteen, just after they installed the new stoplight. It was the second light-controlled intersection. I used to wonder how I would respond to someone asking me about how I could live in such a town and I eventually worked up a reply.
There are a lot of stop signs.
What I mean to say, besides the obvious (there really are a lot of stop signs) is that there are limits on everything that you do, great for a while but ultimately limiting, like putting training wheels on a racing bike would be. Do you remember how you felt when the Wizard of Oz turned out to be a cowering man behind a curtain? When I finally learned that all the little things that I thought were great aids to growing up were now holding me back, I felt suddenly and brutally as exposed to the world as the Wizard must have felt: excruciating scrutiny of even the most minor things made me see that my idea of the real world was unrealistic. No, I wasn't an undiscovered prodigy. No, I wouldn't suddenly make whole nations tremble at my feet by showing my face to the world at large.
One of my strongest childhood memories is falling into a neighbor's pool when I was young and staring up through the deep blue glassy water, watching the light play across the surface, and wondering at my inability to swim or even to thrash around enough to bob back up to the surface. The strangest thing is that I can't remember if it was real or if I dreamed the whole sequence, which includes my neighbor diving into the pool and pulling me back up. From my (faux?) memory, I've decided that it's easy to drown; you just set back and tip your head back under the waves; let a surreal lassitude surround you and caress your fears and consciousness. Floating drifting downwards and you realize at last what's happening, but lethargy has decided to camp in your limbs. The suffocation comes as a release and salvation comes as an intrusion. It's easy enough to snuff out your mind in the thick dreamy air that seems to belong in a small town. Education is rescue, but you have to fight for it on your own terms.
Screaming in a wheat field: the wheat hears you, but it doesn't care. Screaming in a big city: the people hear you, but they don't care. Screaming in a small town: the people hear you and ostracize you. What could be more idyllic, more peaceful, more wonderful than growing up in such a controlled environment? When you finally realize that the world at large isn't made up of bigoted arbitrary decisions (well, most of the world, anyways) and that new experiences aren't necessarily evil, when you realize that your conscience has been programmed to reject and not receive, that's when you scream and say to yourself that it's impossible to go back. I honestly think so, at this point. I could physically picture myself in a small town. I can't imagine setting my mind in its parochial ways.
You watch the evening news; the scene that sticks most clearly in my mind is that of a mannequin holding a lit ladyfinger firecracker until it explodes and the charred mannequin is missing its arm and head. What about the fall of the Berlin Wall? Did it actually exist? And how about the Space Shuttle, whether it lifted off or was delayed on the pad again? No, NASA was just fooling around with models. Floods on the Mississippi? Those camera lenses must be exaggerating. I learned to trust the tangible and distrust anything sight-unseen. I remember the Mt. St. Helens eruption for two reasons: after having visited friends for the entire day, I went outside to find inches and inches of warm gray-colored snow that refused to pack into decent weapons; after a day or two, I began wearing a painter's mask to preschool, as the school required. These are all things that physically affected me. Maybe I'm hopeless at this point -- I'm still a very tactile person. It's strange to communicate with so many people with disembodied electrons whizzing all through wires (but we're getting back out of my realm).
Growing up told me that if you can touch it, it's real. If you can't touch it, it's probably either beyond your understanding or too highfalutin' for your tastes, simple small town boy.
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