I've seen other diarists recently do lists of their ex-loves and how they felt about them and how it ended and blah blah blah, but I'm not interested in ex-boyfriends. So instead I present a list of Towns I Have Loved and Hated, and How They Felt About Me. This will be handy for all you stalkers and identity theives out there. Enjoy!
1. Rainbow City, Alabama.
I actually grew up outside the major metropolitan area of Rainbow City, on a small farm. I loved my farm and even though we moved away from it when I was 12 (my mom eventually couldn't afford it after the divorce), I still dream about it all the time. My farm loved me and I know it misses me.
2. Peanutville,* Alabama.
We moved here when my parents got remarried, just seven short years after the divorce. Peanutville was actually a very good place to go to high school; I had so many interesting friends that it kind of amazes me, in retrospect. The town itself is plastic and ugly and covered in strip malls, but it's only 45 minutes from the beach, which is where I spent about one out of five school days my senior year. Peanutville and I always knew that we wouldn't be together forever, but our four years together were basically good ones.
3. Memphis, TN.
Where I went to my small liberal arts college. Memphis and I got along okay, but the whole white flight thing disturbed me.
4. Ashford, WA.
I only lived here for seven months; it's the tiny town at the base of Mt. Rainier, where I worked. I was friends with the hippie children who worked in the hotel and the ancient, gnarled, retired loggers who quietly drank beer in the town bar, and the wild-haired middle-aged woman who wanted to write a novel and told me about it often after she found out I had an English degree. I haven't been back to Ashford since I moved to Seattle because I love it and Mt. Rainier too much, and they wouldn't be the same. (If you've never really loved a place, you can't understand this, and I'm sure I sound like an idiot.) I will go back, probably in the spring.
5. Eugene, OR.
Graduate school (round one). A lot of friendly people riding around on bicycles. Eugene and I got into a lot of arguments about the weather, and the lack of anyplace to go dancing, and the weather.
6. New Orleans, LA.
Where I bullshitted around last year while deciding whether or not to get a PhD in English. (That was a no, obviously.) New Orleans and I had a brief, torrid affair, but I always knew that I wasn't really committed to making the relationship work. New Orleans was gorgeous and sexy and balmy and warm, but rotten in places. And there was no hiking.
7. Seattle, WA.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
*A pseudonym. I don't want my high school friends to find me here.
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