Going Home

Thank God for the county lines that welcome you back in
When you were dying to get out...

And when you’re lost out in this crazy world
You got somewhere to go and get found
Thank God for hometowns

-Carrie Underwood

-July 2009

Disregard our TEXT typos here: "we're" and "too" (Darn iPhones :) )

I'm a New Yorker. Both my parents were born and raised in New York. Both my brother and my sister attended colleges in New York State. And now here I am living and working in New York City. It was clearly meant to be my home--one day. But for so many years leading up to now, home was somewhere else--it was a little town in Pennsylvania called Bethlehem--It was where I played baseball on the little league field, struck out boys from the pitcher's mound, and scored runs by sliding into home plate.

It where I bought and ate penny candy with my best friend on the pavement playground--which I later scraped my knees on (why are there pavement playgrounds by the way?). It was where I wore my heart on my sleeve for nearly hundreds to thousands of sporting events over 10 years. 

It was where I learned to swim.

It was where I had my first sleepover.

It was where I experienced my first bully--and overcame that bully.

It was where I got my first detention (Hehe).

It was where I went trick-or-treating.

It was where I experienced the loss of a loved one for the first time.

It was where I learned to ride my bike and to drive a car.

It was where I ate apple turnovers with my mom and drank giant glasses of milk over quiet conversation. It was where I tubed down the creek and laughed all day long.

It was where I went on my first date, snuck out past a curfew, and shared my first kiss. 

It was where I played man hunt, capture the flag, and hide-and-go-seek. 

It was where I learned to ice skate and rollerblade--where I learned to fall down--and get back up.

 It was where I met my four best friends who taught me about life and love and happiness. It was where I grew up--even if I grew out. It was where I learned to live. It was--and forever will be my hometown.

Often, with the hustle and bustle of NYC, it's easy to lose touch with "home" to forget to call a grandparent--to forget to text your best friend back, to mindlessly lose sense of time in all possible ways. New York City is, of course, the city that never sleeps--so each day begins to blend into the next, AND before you know it, it's been two months--three months--six months--a year since you've reached out--even to one of your best friends in the entire world.

This past weekend, I was reminded why my friends are so amazing--why my HOMETOWN is so amazing. Without fail, I can return to to Bethlehem, PA and be welcomed back in as if I never left. Without fail, my best friends and I can pick up where we left off--and never look back. Without fail, I can sit poolside with a best friend who I haven't seen in nearly six months, or who had a real conversation with in a year or two--and cry and laugh and smile and feel more connected than ever. 

Without fail--my hometown can always serve as home. Even if I've made a home somewhere else.

"I always find another piece of me
Walking down these old familiar streets /

Thank God for hometowns
And all the love that makes them go round
Thank God for the county lines that welcome you back in
When you were dying to get out
Thank God for Church pews
And all the faces that won’t forget you
And when you’re lost out in this crazy world
You got somewhere to go and get found
Thank God for hometowns
Thank God for hometowns"

-Carrie Underwood

Memorializing the Past, Envisioning the Future

It's not every day that you wake up and plan to visit a graveyard of thousands of people--but yesterday I did. Yesterday, I visited the 9/11 Memorial where just over 10 years ago innocent people, heros, and every day workers lost their lives as three of the center's buildings collapsed after two planes crashed into the Twin Towers. The Memorial recognizes all those who died that day on each of the two planes that his the towers, those who were in the buildings, bystanders, silent heros, and those that were on the other two planes that crashed into the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

It's nearly unimaginable what America would look like now if 9/11 had never happened, what the news would be focused on, how many people would still be in New York City, what our economy would look like, what kids would be learning in schools, what our tolerance in terms of equality might be, what disaster or tragedy may have happened instead.

It's a wonder how many troops lives we could have left unharmed, what the front page of the New York Times would be, each and every day since then--what millions of photos of New York may look like now, who our president might have been from 2004 through 2008.

The truth is that the moment the first plane hit the Twin Towers was the moment America's lives were forever changed--the moment our world became a little more fuzzy--the moment things came crumbling down.

When the teacher I had, at the time of the attacks, recently emailed me, he told me that he

asked his current 8th grade class questions about 9/11--and some of them didn't know how many planes had crashed. For all they knew was that they had been in a war since the moment they could say the word..."war."

I hope that one day the kids I have can visit this site and not be in a war, that they can talk about how well the country is doing, how nice it is not to be battling someone else.

I know those times of calm and happy are few and far between, and that life without war, in our country, and most all other countries, is rare, but I hope for their sake they get to experience that rarity, that they get to experience front page news that makes people smile, rather than news that drives people to duck tape their windows shut. That they get to live life without terror and overhyped media dramatizing inaccuracies. I hope that they get to live with people who tell the truth. And, I hope, above all things, they get to live.

#On911

#On911 I was 13 and confused. Our teachers were told to turn off their televisions, keep us away from the computers and go about the day as if nothing had happened. But something had happened. Something big. Something called a terrorist attack.

I didn't know what that meant. To me monsters and bad guys wore capes and battled Spiderman and Batman. They weren't REAL people. They were cartoons, movie characters, and fictional reads. Maybe I was naive, or maybe it was the first time I realized that the Joker could actually exist, that the Green Goblin was out there--that it didn't take super powers, that it just took a dark heart.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the attacks on our country. That means today marks the day when my blog matches nearly every other Americans blog in telling the story of 9/11, in unmasking the villain of Osama Bin Laden, in laying out feelings and memories of that day.

It's exactly ten years later and I don't understand it much more than I did when I was 13. To me, it's still a graphic novel: Good vs evil, evil hurts good, good seeks revenge, good kills evil, evil somehow still exists.

What I do know, believe, and understand is that the lives of too many were lost that day--too many people just going to work, too many who had just said goodbye to their husbands and wives and kissed their kids on the forehead, too many who were just making a subway transfer, too many who were just sticking to routine--too many who had just boarded a plane for a get-a-way, too many who were silent heros, too many who were innocent. #TooMany.

Today we remember those people. We remember the tragedy. And we remember our pride. May those memories and this feeling of pride continue on September 12, on September 13, and every day there after. Togetherness is something I do understand.