City Mouse...In a Small Town

"The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" is one of Aesop's Fables. It is number 352 in the Perry Index and type 112 in Aarne-Thompson's folk tale index.[1] Like several other elements in Aesop's fables, 'town mouse and country mouse' has become an English idiom.

In the original tale, a proud town mouse visits a friend (or relation) in the country. The country mouse offers the city mouse a meal of simple country foods, at which the visitor scoffs and invites the country mouse back to the city for a taste of the "fine life." But, their rich city meal is interrupted by a couple of dogs which force the mice to abandon their feast and scurry to safety. After this, the country mouse decides to return home, preferring security to plenty or, as the 13th-century preacher Odo of Cheriton phrased it, "I'd rather gnaw a bean than be gnawed by continual fear."[2]

So, I am kind of like the city mouse in this story. I lived in the City of Boston for the past nine years and then got a job here in Rhode Island. At first, I was going to try to live part time in Rhode Island and part time in Boston…then I remembered: “I am not rich”.

I took my near-perfect pup and we moved into an old house on Main Street in Wickford.

The first thing I noticed is how people are so chatty! A fact about me is I am almost a complete extrovert. (There’s a test you can take: I answer yes to everything except I do not like to chat on the phone. I never know when to pause and let the other person talk….) So chatty folks are some of my favorites…

How I got to be an almost complete extrovert was, well, I moved a lot.

A lot? You may ask how much? Well.

I have lived in seven states, attended eight schools and only two times did I enter the school and leave the school in the time frame one is expected (junior high and grad school). In those seven states there are about 30 moves…so, a lot of packing boxes, moving furniture and learning a new neighborhood.

In Rhode Island when I explain this, people tend to look at me like I lost an arm in a boating accident.

“But where are you from?” they ask, their faces looking troubled.

“Well, nowhere really. I have lived all over.”

They shake their heads like I said I was diabetic, dyslexic or had some other hard-held life issue that they were sad I had to get through.  

In a small town, people seem sure they should watch out for you. 

I sort of really like it, but I am not sure what to do with it…

and people do seem to mind my business.

“I saw you turning at that light. Do you know there is an easier way to go?”

I lived in a city where they put a sign on a restaurant that says:  “You can not use the bathroom here if you are not a customer. Don’t even ask.”

So, a person asking questions about the direction I choose to drive is soooo odd. Or I say:

“I live on Main Street.”

“You rent?”

I nod.

“Don Stone’s building?”

“Um, yeah.” I mean…wow.

I do like that if I have to go to the bathroom, any place in North Kingstown would say “Of course.”

I like that I forgot my credit card at the florist and the owner said, “Just take the flowers. Come back and pay me.”

That doesn’t happen in the city.

Because I keep telling people I feel like I was a city mouse and am now a country mouse I looked up the fable. I am not sure what to think of the quote, “I’d rather gnaw on a bean than be gnawed on by continual fear.”

It somehow seems…old fashioned, like cities are dark, lurking and dangerous. I do not think that is true. However, I found the city stressful: there is traffic and the need to make a dynamic plan when it comes to where to park. There’s public transportation –hooray! – but it is often undependable and expensive (un-hooray). 

There is a funny “togetherness” and “aloneness” to a city. Like there is every kind of person in a city – race, sexual orientation, religion. This I love. I could hear four languages spoken before I got to work. I could get the best Vietnamese food in my neighborhood.  Once, one of the churches had a service where the whole congregation walked around our neighborhood singing. It was beautiful. I love how people might do anything in a city…dance on street, yell up to an apartment, see a parade go by. The “togetherness” is all strung into the differentness of everyone and this I love.

I have always been a bit askew in life. “Not the same” in a city this is hardly noticed at all. I am just one of the funny, oddities in a place of many strange things. Yet, when I walked my dog people looked away in the parks, afraid of eye contact. Most people are rushing and I cannot drive there without someone beeping their horn at me. (I am a distracted driver, so some of that could be my driving.)  If I am crossing a street on foot I must wait and wait: no one stops to let me cross. 

Here in my small town of Wickford, I always think I live in the town the depicted on “Gilmore Girls.” There are Christmas lights in the windows, the man in his roving wheelchair who waves to me and people who play instruments on the green. I end up looking at cars a long time that are waiting to let me and Scout to walk across the street. They stop the flow of traffic to let us cross, waving and smiling at us. In the library my phone went off playing loudly “Born This Way” everyone smiled while I knocked everything over to turn the phone off.

My last blog was about the sweet space of the Beach Rose Café and how warm everyone is there. After I wrote it people came up to me at the café and spoke to me about the piece. I felt like I belonged to this small town in my own quirky way. It was a feeling I found to be new. I have thought I was just someone who belonged to some people who loved me and whom I loved but not someone who belonged to any place. I had given up on the word “home” as a location. I haven’t got it all figured out, but you can join me as I keep discovering my city mouse self in a small town…

The other day I lost my wallet. I called the North Kingstown police to report it missing.

“I lost my wallet walking.”

The dispatcher asked: “Where were you walking? “

I said: “The park.”

She said: “Which park?”

I smiled. 

No one would ask “Which park?” in the city.

This little town is woo-ing me. The courtship is slow and I play hard to get at times, but really it smells like the sea and people are friendly. I just may “gnaw on a bean” a bit longer…

 (In a dynamic minute of self-promotion, if you like what I write consider joining one of my writing groups. Check my website on www.explorewritingworkshops.com)