Nocturne
I grew up in Cazenovia, NY, a small town in upstate New York. If you tell people you're from there, some will think you're some kind of a richie-rich (I'm sorry, you must be thinking of Skaneateles). Others will see you as a philistine cow-tipper. Of course, being working-class and Asian kind of disrupts those narratives, and such is the inert, confusing life on the hazy edge of the suburbs, where Victorian houses melt into woods and dairy farms.
Caz (as the natives call it) is in the middle of nowhere, and yet everything a kid could ever want--playgrounds, penny candy racks, a library (with a mummy on the second floor!), and most importantly, friends--were all in walking distance of each other. Summers were spent by or on or in the lake, while winters were spent converting the ample supply of snow into either life (snowmen) or death (snowballs). I think this is why so many of my childhood friends have made themselves at home in New York City. It just makes sense to have all four seasons, which you don't experience as much in other parts of the country, and it also makes sense that you can walk out of the house, down the street, and get something to drink.*
Which brings me to this place. It is a place I have been so many times in my life, day and night, happy and sad, hot and cold. It may be the single place I will miss the most about Cazenovia.
The orange rails demark a short bridge that can't be more than twenty feet long. It straddles Chittenango Creek, which runs north from Cazenovia Lake to Chittenango Falls and eventually Oneida Lake. The creek, having begun its journey about a half mile up the hill, gently passes under the bridge, and being a quiet place in a quiet town, it's enough to provide a calming effect that you could take with you to school or to the store or to the bar or back home.
Just past the bridge is where the old railroad tracks run through town. If you were to turn left, you would travel a dirt path to Buyea's hardware store and the lower part of Albany St., a.k.a. the Cherry Valley Turnpike, a.k.a. US Route 20, a.k.a. the main drag in town. Just to the right of this photo is the old train depot which now houses a photography studio. Past that is a lumber yard, and even further past that is a trail that runs behind the elementary school, the sewage treatment plant, and beyond. Near the trail head is an old railroad bridge was a delightfully challenging collection of gaps for a short striding schoolboy. It was slatted over several years ago to make it suitable for public hiking, which gave me the satisfaction of having known it "back in the day", but also brought on the sadness that I've declined to engage less dangerous environments as I've gotten older.
I would have had to cross this bridge to get anywhere in "greater Cazenovia", including schools, the lake, and the tonier part of Albany Street. Indeed, it was where one passed from one side of the tracks to the other, making it a perfect metaphor for someone who has never been comfortable in one place or another. I also wonder if I have reached a point in my life where my youth seems completely uncomplicated and unequivocally happy. Clearly, there is comfort in remembering a time when I wasn't an underachiever, and this place brings it by the pallet load. I'm not sure I like that feeling. The vulnerability I can handle, but I can't allow maudlin bowdlerization of some tough times to obfuscate how far I've come.
I always felt that as long as my parents still lived in Caz, I could claim citizenship to my old hometown, but now that they're in another house in a another town, I feel like that has been revoked. I will almost definitely roll into Caz again, but I probably won't have the privilege of passing through this particular place again. My parents live only 10 miles away, but it's a different county, a different exit off of I-81, even slightly different weather owing to a slight drop in altitude. It may as well be 10 light years away. It seems so strange that such a small distance can make such a difference, but I can feel the butterfly causing a tidal wave in my soul.
===
When I say good bye, I walk away and don't look back. This has come in handy a few times, but I consider it a bad habit that has earned many regrets. As I walked away from here, I didn't look back. Instead, I looked up and was confronted by a sky full of stars. What a simple pleasure stars are. It's the one thing that you absolutely cannot get in New York, despite its long list of delivery options. Even with the sodium lights blaring into your retina, you can still make out the W of Cassiopeia. Seconds into indulging in the celestial abundance above me, a shooting star pierced through my zen moment. Time to make a wish. It's exactly these occasions that illustrate why it's good to have more wishes than time to fulfill them, because I totally blanked. A few ideas dripped into my head, then I thought to myself, "You know what? I wish I could go back and do it all over again, pretty much** the same way I did it."
Humbly submitted,
Your unreliable narrator
Notes:
* On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to have to seek the acceptance of every single person you interact with, because, you know, there aren't that many people around, so every slight, every snide comment, every apathetic stare matters.
** How much is pretty much? I'm mostly thinking of a particularly public and humiliating crush that set the tone for my post-puberty. 80% was the number I had in mind at first, but that's more than one day a week of regrets! 99% means three days a year I could have done without, and I think that would cover the most of the damage.
Nocturne
I grew up in Cazenovia, NY, a small town in upstate New York. If you tell people you're from there, some will think you're some kind of a richie-rich (I'm sorry, you must be thinking of Skaneateles). Others will see you as a philistine cow-tipper. Of course, being working-class and Asian kind of disrupts those narratives, and such is the inert, confusing life on the hazy edge of the suburbs, where Victorian houses melt into woods and dairy farms.
Caz (as the natives call it) is in the middle of nowhere, and yet everything a kid could ever want--playgrounds, penny candy racks, a library (with a mummy on the second floor!), and most importantly, friends--were all in walking distance of each other. Summers were spent by or on or in the lake, while winters were spent converting the ample supply of snow into either life (snowmen) or death (snowballs). I think this is why so many of my childhood friends have made themselves at home in New York City. It just makes sense to have all four seasons, which you don't experience as much in other parts of the country, and it also makes sense that you can walk out of the house, down the street, and get something to drink.*
Which brings me to this place. It is a place I have been so many times in my life, day and night, happy and sad, hot and cold. It may be the single place I will miss the most about Cazenovia.
The orange rails demark a short bridge that can't be more than twenty feet long. It straddles Chittenango Creek, which runs north from Cazenovia Lake to Chittenango Falls and eventually Oneida Lake. The creek, having begun its journey about a half mile up the hill, gently passes under the bridge, and being a quiet place in a quiet town, it's enough to provide a calming effect that you could take with you to school or to the store or to the bar or back home.
Just past the bridge is where the old railroad tracks run through town. If you were to turn left, you would travel a dirt path to Buyea's hardware store and the lower part of Albany St., a.k.a. the Cherry Valley Turnpike, a.k.a. US Route 20, a.k.a. the main drag in town. Just to the right of this photo is the old train depot which now houses a photography studio. Past that is a lumber yard, and even further past that is a trail that runs behind the elementary school, the sewage treatment plant, and beyond. Near the trail head is an old railroad bridge was a delightfully challenging collection of gaps for a short striding schoolboy. It was slatted over several years ago to make it suitable for public hiking, which gave me the satisfaction of having known it "back in the day", but also brought on the sadness that I've declined to engage less dangerous environments as I've gotten older.
I would have had to cross this bridge to get anywhere in "greater Cazenovia", including schools, the lake, and the tonier part of Albany Street. Indeed, it was where one passed from one side of the tracks to the other, making it a perfect metaphor for someone who has never been comfortable in one place or another. I also wonder if I have reached a point in my life where my youth seems completely uncomplicated and unequivocally happy. Clearly, there is comfort in remembering a time when I wasn't an underachiever, and this place brings it by the pallet load. I'm not sure I like that feeling. The vulnerability I can handle, but I can't allow maudlin bowdlerization of some tough times to obfuscate how far I've come.
I always felt that as long as my parents still lived in Caz, I could claim citizenship to my old hometown, but now that they're in another house in a another town, I feel like that has been revoked. I will almost definitely roll into Caz again, but I probably won't have the privilege of passing through this particular place again. My parents live only 10 miles away, but it's a different county, a different exit off of I-81, even slightly different weather owing to a slight drop in altitude. It may as well be 10 light years away. It seems so strange that such a small distance can make such a difference, but I can feel the butterfly causing a tidal wave in my soul.
===
When I say good bye, I walk away and don't look back. This has come in handy a few times, but I consider it a bad habit that has earned many regrets. As I walked away from here, I didn't look back. Instead, I looked up and was confronted by a sky full of stars. What a simple pleasure stars are. It's the one thing that you absolutely cannot get in New York, despite its long list of delivery options. Even with the sodium lights blaring into your retina, you can still make out the W of Cassiopeia. Seconds into indulging in the celestial abundance above me, a shooting star pierced through my zen moment. Time to make a wish. It's exactly these occasions that illustrate why it's good to have more wishes than time to fulfill them, because I totally blanked. A few ideas dripped into my head, then I thought to myself, "You know what? I wish I could go back and do it all over again, pretty much** the same way I did it."
Humbly submitted,
Your unreliable narrator
Notes:
* On the other hand, it doesn't make sense to have to seek the acceptance of every single person you interact with, because, you know, there aren't that many people around, so every slight, every snide comment, every apathetic stare matters.
** How much is pretty much? I'm mostly thinking of a particularly public and humiliating crush that set the tone for my post-puberty. 80% was the number I had in mind at first, but that's more than one day a week of regrets! 99% means three days a year I could have done without, and I think that would cover the most of the damage.