My Urban Small Town

Last week’s news in my Connecticut city included headlines like “Man Shot to Death”, “Woman Stabbed” along with the usual smattering of theft and drug arrests. Yet this morning I will join my neighbors at the Memorial Day Parade and feel like I live in a small town. Better actually. Here, families lining up along the parade route, sitting haunch-to-haunch along the curb will be Indian, Polish, Italian, African American, Central American, Brazilian…

We will spot each other’s children on the drums, twirling flags, leaping with their dance troupe. These kids grow up together as friends, seeing knowing no difference, hearing no accents. We will cheer the marching bands – even from rival schools, we will greet our neighbors marching with the fire department, the police force. We’ll even shake hands and smile at the politicians we would never vote for. Cheering, we will acknowledge the diminishing number of old soldiers riding gun-shot in vintage cars, World War II medals proudly displayed on pressed dress uniforms that no longer quite fit. We will stand and applaud solemnly as the memorial float rolls by – the number of losses always up, sadder for being unnecessary.

Sitting on the curb for the hour or so it takes for our city to parade by, I fall a little more in love with Norwalk. It is a struggling city with under-performing schools, gangs and more prevalent and uglier crimes than the surrounding, prettier, wealthier, mostly white suburbs five minutes drive in any direction.  I will walk home with my neighbors, these dear friends of shared history of terrible sadnesses, wonderful joys. The smell of wild roses in the air, our feet soaked from the still-wet grass, we will traipse across the field back to our neighborhood behind city hall. We will inventory who will bring what to the inevitable gathering later in the day, to mark this welcome season, celebrate life, to share the love.