Glad You Called 10: Small-Town Glory, Part 2
Part 1 should have made it clear: spring and May, in particular, were beautiful in StG. Spending a lot of time outside, with good friends, going on road trips… it was a nice way of living. But things were not meant to end on this high note, not so soon anyway.
Right after those great spring weeks, it was time for the city kid to move again. At that point in time, I was not even sure if I am coming back to StG anytime soon. But honestly, I did not really care because I was going away for the summer. What was even better is that the summer winds had taken me not just anywhere, but to one of THE cities in Europe (calling it BLN). If you haven’t read my GYC 8, now would be the time. In any case, you should know I had a blast — back in the city, in the summertime, when the weather is hot. Pretty sure there’s a song which goes like that…
After THAT summer in BLN, I had no desire to go live in a smaller city again, let alone in the town of StG. I mean I could already imagine it: if I thought that there was nothing happening before going to BLN, what would be my opinion of that little place now, after BLN. Oh God, what was I going to do… What’s worse, it was autumn time again — grey, rainy, foggy, the whole package. The cherry on top was the fact that some of the key heroes and heroines from the joyous spring days were absent from StG this time around. And on top of the cherry on top, Corona was still very much lurking, you know, same way it has been around for over a year now. All in all, things were pretty much set up for a tough patch of a semester ahead.
Already in the first months of the fall semester, however, I somehow felt different about my student town. I felt as if I am looking at StG with a new pair of eyes. Maybe it was with the same eyes, but I was just not looking close enough before. Or I had been too stubborn to try. Or I did not know what to look for, how to properly experience StG. Sometimes I even think that the absence of some friends pushed me to look further than my comfortable bubble, to explore the town, to reach out to new names and faces.
Yes, now that I try to pin it down, reaching-out it was. First, I reached out to classmates, some of whom I had not had the opportunity to get to know in the previous action-packed semesters. This is how I made new friends, friends until now, certainly friends for long ahead. Next, I reached to the guys I was living with, my flatmates. We formed a friendship; I might have even sensed notes of a small “4er-WG” community. Whatever it was, it was a fresh feeling, one that was not present the year before in that same apartment. Also, I reached out to sports — the core of my well-being and one of the foundational pillars of my character, as many would agree. I played football and basketball by the truckloads; I ran, and I even did yoga (plus, going to the gym a total of 3 times, which is like 2 times more than the whole year before).
Lastly, and most strikingly, I reached out to people that I have met in StG but had not been anywhere to “close” with. What does that even mean?! Well, I decided to randomly get in touch with people who might be in town. And, as the story goes, I met a girl. She also made me look at StG differently. She could have actually been the catalyst of my small-town Renaissance, a Mona Lisa of sorts. I mean she is an explorer, you see, an appreciator of the small, simple things — that is how I got to know the cute, little sides of my uni town. A boutique café around the corner, a hidden ping-pong table just across the street, a laid-back restaurant (with superb cordon bleu) next to the train station, an undercover rustic bar in the town’s center. While getting to know her, I was getting to know my town, too.
Even when I was walking alone around StG, I began to enjoy the scenery. I stated to notice peculiar buildings, hidden parks, sunny terraces. I hate to admit it, but I mostly enjoyed the walks up the hill to uni. When talking to people about places, I often found myself speaking of StG with more pride than before. Quite surprisingly, though, of all the things I had begun to like about my small town, I liked its tranquility the most. That feeling of total silence, which cities never truly have. In fact, one of my most vivid memories from that fall, is a Sunday walk with my best friend, on her last day in StG. It was deep in October, the trees along my street were covered in all shades of red, brown, orange and yellow. There was no sound. Just steps on the “groundful” of autumn leaves and, paradoxically, sunshine!
Even when the snow arrived, and there has been lots of it this winter, StG remains charming in my eyes. Another picture-perfect memory: the girl who made me see and I walking drunk in the heavy snow, in the middle of the night. Of course, there was no one on the streets. Of course, we were the first ones making steps on the white ground. Or maybe we were not. Who cares, in my mind StG felt as romantic as it gets.
Thinking more and more about the past months in the town, I start to actually get nostalgic. There are other great memories popping in my head, but those I’ll keep to myself. Surely, there are also some moments to look forward to. After all, I do still have some time left to spend in StG.
Although it felt far from glorious in the beginning, and also for some time after that, my experience in StG definitely feels like small-town glory. Not the glory that is a source of importance, reputation and fame — no. I am thinking of glory as “great beauty”. And that is not the physical beauty of glamour, greed and lust… It is instead the beauty in smallness, the beauty in content and not only in context, the beauty in the little things and moments.
I’ve always been a city kid and I’ll always be a city kid. But that small-town glory, man, damn it feels good.
Yours truly,
Glad You Called
