I wrote this two summers ago when someone asked me "Is Anderson a better place to live than any other? If so, why?". I avoided answering in person because I didn't know what to say but as time passed I realized my answers and emailed them to her. Thought it'd be fun to share them with a larger audience.
If you're interested in the perspective of another person who writes essays instead of answering their friends questions by speaking check out Parker Pickett's recent essay here about the essence of Anderson.
Around the time I turned fourteen I realized that I could one day move away from Anderson. I hadn’t thought much about the possibility of living elsewhere until that point and after it occurred to me I couldn’t think about much else. I gathered up books at the library about punk rock and other alternative cultures I was interested in and spent way too much of my free time day dreaming about the places I read about. I met teenagers online from these places and spent many evenings instant messaging and these relationships fueled my obsession. I even planned to run away a couple of times but in the end decided to wait until my eighteenth birthday.
Meanwhile during the count down to 4-20-2008 (my eighteenth birthday) my family went through a series of small and ordinary catastrophes and I started avoiding spending time at home and distancing myself from my parents. My boundaries were expanded to “our side of the river” and as far south as fourteenth street and as far west as Madison and I made the whole area my new home. By the time I turned eighteen I knew every alleyway and street, every bridge and parking lot. I knew which doors were often unlocked and I found out what days to check which dumpsters to get the neatest or most useful items. I memorized the textures of all the different types of stone and concrete and brick and explored from the sewer to the rooftops. I told time by the chiming of the bells at AU and the church on 12th and Jackson and if I was out of range of those I also knew the train schedules. In the wooded areas leading to the river I learned where every feral apple and mulberry tree was rooted and where the sweetest wild berry brambles could be found. I met foxes, muskrats, raccoon, deer and regularly visited an owl. When I was tired of wandering there were always interesting people to be found. Downtown Anderson became my best friend and I learned not just the geography but also the changing moods and the character, personality and spirit that is embodied there.
I still day dreamed and made plans about leaving like the rest of my peers but the tug of the city was so strong on my heart that I couldn’t wait to get up every morning to adventure. I often took off before my family wakened and stayed out until dinner time. My tiny area kept unfolding offering layer upon layer of mystique, danger and fun.
When I turned eighteen I did leave and I had all the experiences I’d been dreaming of and then some. I slept on the salt flats under the stars in the Mojave desert. I played with children who lived in shanties at the Tijuana dump. I swam in both oceans, and climbed mountains in the east and west. I met rattlesnakes in the Appalachias and folk singers in the sierras. I walked the hills of east LA to the tune of mariachis and I picked blueberries at dawn in the tall dewy grasses of a farm in Georgia. I slept on rooftops through humid hot nights in south Florida and played in the rain with a gang of homeless folks in Eugene. I explored the sparkling gray bustle of Chicago and bathed in cool mountain springs in North Carolina. I ate with coal miners in West Virginia and got a ride hitch hiking from an oil executive in Texas.
All these places I’d gotten to know enchanted and inspired me but none of them were mine and when I imagined trying to make them mine it didn’t feel right. Nothing excited me more than when I was headed home and caught the sight of the barren, brown sheetcake empty corn fields of an Indiana winter frosted lightly, flat as far as the eye could see. I knew that soon I would be back in the arms of Anderson, the city that taught me how to be a human, the city that I knew like I know myself. I didn’t feel home sick much as I rambled around but still I felt such joy and relief when I returned to re-root myself here and some how experiencing all those exotic places just made Anderson even more special to me. How could that bond be duplicated anywhere else? How could I ever gain the intimacy that I had forged with Anderson with any other place? I couldn’t.
Is Anderson somehow more special than these places or is it just my bond with the city that brought me back? I had many invitations and opportunities to stay as I traveled but I turned away from them. My family is here and that’s a good reason to come back but when I imagine them moving I know that I wouldn’t follow them and I never would have. I used to say I returned because I felt a responsibility to the town to help her grow and change but I know now I came back mostly for me. The city is always changing with or without me and when I look around I see that most of the change is good but I really can’t be trusted to make any objective statements about why Anderson is a better place to live than any other. My relationship with Anderson is something like the hormonal bond between mother and child. It is deeper than attraction and deeper than familiarity. Even as an athiest I am tempted to use the word spiritual to describe my connection with this town. However I have witnessed enough people visiting here and falling in love, getting stuck here & being happy about it or leaving and coming back that I have a pretty good guess that there is something objectively special about this place.
No, Anderson isn’t perfect. I see faults and short comings and she hasn’t always been kind to me or people like me. I think Anderson’s biggest fault is her low self esteem and that fact always makes my heart swell for her even more. It usually goes beyond humbleness and crosses the line into self loathing and it holds her back and causes a bitter or almost toxic sarcasm and sadness to be detected in the air sometimes. Anderson has been wounded too and wont stop nursing and whining about the long healed scars. I think that these faults don’t bother me so much because they’re shared by me and those that are closest to me. Do we love Anderson because of this or did Anderson teach us to be this way? Can’t tell. I know the perfect medicine for it though and it’s constant love and affirmation and I plan to shower Anderson with those things as much as I can.
Nowadays I “own” a small part of Anderson. I regretted this decision off and on not too long ago but most of the time now there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be. On the first day of summer someone asked me why I wanted to live in Anderson more than anywhere else. Earlier that day I had found myself in my yard gathering mulberries in a sunny and warm golden light rain shower. A brilliant and clear rainbow spread across the sky and my baby was pulling on the hem of my skirt and my husband and I were surrounded by the most wonderful people...travelers, artists, philosophers, poets and punk musicians. Almost all of us were from somewhere else or at least had left and come back, all of us were choosing to be right there together and wanting to be nowhere else. Maybe we choose to because we feel confident that we can be ourselves here because Anderson is a part of that self. The allure of Anderson is perhaps deeper than something that can easily be listed out or put into words. Rather than an array of attractions and cultural outlets and beautiful and fun gathering places maybe it’s a personality - an identity that creeps into the hearts of those who leave theirs open.
If you're interested in the perspective of another person who writes essays instead of answering their friends questions by speaking check out Parker Pickett's recent essay here about the essence of Anderson.
Dickman Town Center Park teens circa 2004
Meanwhile during the count down to 4-20-2008 (my eighteenth birthday) my family went through a series of small and ordinary catastrophes and I started avoiding spending time at home and distancing myself from my parents. My boundaries were expanded to “our side of the river” and as far south as fourteenth street and as far west as Madison and I made the whole area my new home. By the time I turned eighteen I knew every alleyway and street, every bridge and parking lot. I knew which doors were often unlocked and I found out what days to check which dumpsters to get the neatest or most useful items. I memorized the textures of all the different types of stone and concrete and brick and explored from the sewer to the rooftops. I told time by the chiming of the bells at AU and the church on 12th and Jackson and if I was out of range of those I also knew the train schedules. In the wooded areas leading to the river I learned where every feral apple and mulberry tree was rooted and where the sweetest wild berry brambles could be found. I met foxes, muskrats, raccoon, deer and regularly visited an owl. When I was tired of wandering there were always interesting people to be found. Downtown Anderson became my best friend and I learned not just the geography but also the changing moods and the character, personality and spirit that is embodied there.
I still day dreamed and made plans about leaving like the rest of my peers but the tug of the city was so strong on my heart that I couldn’t wait to get up every morning to adventure. I often took off before my family wakened and stayed out until dinner time. My tiny area kept unfolding offering layer upon layer of mystique, danger and fun.
When I turned eighteen I did leave and I had all the experiences I’d been dreaming of and then some. I slept on the salt flats under the stars in the Mojave desert. I played with children who lived in shanties at the Tijuana dump. I swam in both oceans, and climbed mountains in the east and west. I met rattlesnakes in the Appalachias and folk singers in the sierras. I walked the hills of east LA to the tune of mariachis and I picked blueberries at dawn in the tall dewy grasses of a farm in Georgia. I slept on rooftops through humid hot nights in south Florida and played in the rain with a gang of homeless folks in Eugene. I explored the sparkling gray bustle of Chicago and bathed in cool mountain springs in North Carolina. I ate with coal miners in West Virginia and got a ride hitch hiking from an oil executive in Texas.
All these places I’d gotten to know enchanted and inspired me but none of them were mine and when I imagined trying to make them mine it didn’t feel right. Nothing excited me more than when I was headed home and caught the sight of the barren, brown sheetcake empty corn fields of an Indiana winter frosted lightly, flat as far as the eye could see. I knew that soon I would be back in the arms of Anderson, the city that taught me how to be a human, the city that I knew like I know myself. I didn’t feel home sick much as I rambled around but still I felt such joy and relief when I returned to re-root myself here and some how experiencing all those exotic places just made Anderson even more special to me. How could that bond be duplicated anywhere else? How could I ever gain the intimacy that I had forged with Anderson with any other place? I couldn’t.
Is Anderson somehow more special than these places or is it just my bond with the city that brought me back? I had many invitations and opportunities to stay as I traveled but I turned away from them. My family is here and that’s a good reason to come back but when I imagine them moving I know that I wouldn’t follow them and I never would have. I used to say I returned because I felt a responsibility to the town to help her grow and change but I know now I came back mostly for me. The city is always changing with or without me and when I look around I see that most of the change is good but I really can’t be trusted to make any objective statements about why Anderson is a better place to live than any other. My relationship with Anderson is something like the hormonal bond between mother and child. It is deeper than attraction and deeper than familiarity. Even as an athiest I am tempted to use the word spiritual to describe my connection with this town. However I have witnessed enough people visiting here and falling in love, getting stuck here & being happy about it or leaving and coming back that I have a pretty good guess that there is something objectively special about this place.
No, Anderson isn’t perfect. I see faults and short comings and she hasn’t always been kind to me or people like me. I think Anderson’s biggest fault is her low self esteem and that fact always makes my heart swell for her even more. It usually goes beyond humbleness and crosses the line into self loathing and it holds her back and causes a bitter or almost toxic sarcasm and sadness to be detected in the air sometimes. Anderson has been wounded too and wont stop nursing and whining about the long healed scars. I think that these faults don’t bother me so much because they’re shared by me and those that are closest to me. Do we love Anderson because of this or did Anderson teach us to be this way? Can’t tell. I know the perfect medicine for it though and it’s constant love and affirmation and I plan to shower Anderson with those things as much as I can.
Nowadays I “own” a small part of Anderson. I regretted this decision off and on not too long ago but most of the time now there isn’t anywhere I’d rather be. On the first day of summer someone asked me why I wanted to live in Anderson more than anywhere else. Earlier that day I had found myself in my yard gathering mulberries in a sunny and warm golden light rain shower. A brilliant and clear rainbow spread across the sky and my baby was pulling on the hem of my skirt and my husband and I were surrounded by the most wonderful people...travelers, artists, philosophers, poets and punk musicians. Almost all of us were from somewhere else or at least had left and come back, all of us were choosing to be right there together and wanting to be nowhere else. Maybe we choose to because we feel confident that we can be ourselves here because Anderson is a part of that self. The allure of Anderson is perhaps deeper than something that can easily be listed out or put into words. Rather than an array of attractions and cultural outlets and beautiful and fun gathering places maybe it’s a personality - an identity that creeps into the hearts of those who leave theirs open.
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