I came home from five weeks in the Fairhope with an idea. I
was going to bring a little Fairhope home with me. Not literally. I didn't
steal the clock tower or stuff Mobile Bay into the trunk of my Lexus. I mean
the spirit of it. Community. Friendliness. Going places just because something
was happening. Talking to strangers. Participating in local life instead of
sitting in my house watching other people participate in theirs on Bravo.
In Fairhope, I would walk into a shop and hear,
"Welcome in!" People talked to me. I talked to them. There were free
things happening. Music. Events. The bay. I went to yoga and met people. I
wandered around town. I became the sort of woman who left her house
recreationally. I liked her. She reminded me of younger, curious me.
So when I got back to Pennsylvania, I thought: I'm keeping
this going. Fairhope isn't magic. Community exists everywhere. Maybe I'd simply
stopped looking for it here.
This was a beautiful theory.
Pennsylvania immediately began gathering evidence for the
prosecution.
First I tried getting a job at a local restaurant. Nothing
major. Just something social. Get out among humanity. Make some money. (Because
that Southern Book trip was costly!) Meet people. I applied. Apparently they
only higher highschool kids. Yet they are constantly looking for help? Hmm. I
see a solution to that problem. I guess they don’t?
Fine. Onward.
I went to the local bakery. The general atmosphere involved
children running around the bakery, while their parents ignored them. Which
wasn't quite the quaint little cozy community business I'd pictured. Still, I
persisted. Because New Fairhope Birdie was going to participate!
Then I saw that the local fire company was having a hoagie
sale.
A FIRE COMPANY HOAGIE SALE.
This was it. If anything screamed small-town community,
surely it was volunteer firefighters assembling sandwiches. I practically heard
a banjo.
So I walked over. There were people inside talking among
themselves. We are talking 15 people max. And it had been open for an hour. I
approached with my cheerful new Southern-participation energy and asked,
"So, how does this work?"
You would have thought I'd asked them to explain
cryptocurrency.
They stopped talking. Looked at me. And seemed profoundly
inconvenienced by the arrival of a person attempting to purchase one of the
hoagies at their hoagie sale. Apparently I had interrupted the meeting portion
of the hoagie sale by trying to buy a hoagie. And apparently, you couldn’t use
a credit card. Cash or check. Sigh.
I walked away shaking my head and laughing.
At this point, I'm beginning to suspect Pennsylvania and I
are participating in a sitcom neither of us pitched. I keep saying, "I'm
going to bring a little Fairhope home!" And Pennsylvania keeps saying,
"That's adorable."
The funny thing is, I want my theory about Fairhope to be
wrong. I want to discover that I was merely intoxicated by my working vacation.
That community was sitting right here all along and I'd simply forgotten to
knock on its door.
So I knock.
The door opens approximately three inches.
"Can I help you?"
Yes. Hello. I'd like one community, please!
"We're out."
Of course you are.
Maybe that's the lesson. Maybe you can't bring a place home
with you. You can bring home the dresses you wore there. The pictures. The
books you bought. The Mule Mix. The ideas you had. You can put your papers back
on your desk exactly where they belong and be enormously grateful to sleep in
your own bed. But perhaps some places simply fit us better than others.
And maybe I didn't become friendlier or more adventurous in
Fairhope. Maybe Fairhope just gave that part of me more opportunities to come
outside and play.
I'm not giving up on Pennsylvania yet. I'll keep going to
things. I'll keep saying hello. I'll keep attempting community.
But I'm proceeding cautiously.
Because if I see a sign tomorrow that says CHURCH PANCAKE
BREAKFAST, I'm going.
And if someone gets annoyed because I ask where the syrup
is, I'm putting the house on Zillow.
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