How growing up in a growing city exposed one suburban kid to the world.
If you’d asked the 16-year-old me if I’d live in my hometown in my thirties, I would’ve shouted, “No!” Home was comfortable and familiar, and I was restless to try life somewhere else. I craved the adventure and excitement of a bigger city.
I’ve lived other places since then: a mind-expanding semester in France, a soggy year in Seattle after college, and a romantic few years in Washington, DC, where I met my husband. But somehow, I always end up back home.
Home is Raleigh, North Carolina. The house where I grew up, a 1970’s split-level where my parents still live, sits among pines and poplars on a dead end street in what used to be the country outside of town but is now the suburbs.
Thomas Wolfe, a North Carolina native like me, wrote, “You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood, [...] back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time.”
But I didn’t come back here because it’s the scene of happy memories past. I like this place because it keeps changing with me. I think that growing up where I did and when I did helped open me to the world.
Bhangra in the land of barbeque and sweet tea
My best friend got married here in Raleigh a couple of years ago. We met on the long school bus ride home from the first day of eighth grade, and we’ve stayed friends ever since. She asked me to help her pick out clothes for the wedding. Instead of the usual white bridal gowns and taffeta bridesmaid dresses popular at most American weddings, we hunted through racks of jewel-toned saris and beaded lenghas at a shop that specializes in imports from India.
Her wedding day bloomed with bright colors, rich fabrics and garlands of flowers. The groom rode in on a white horse, and the bride floated down the aisle upon a golden litter. In a ritual that lasted several hours, they exchanged jewelry, shared coconut and rice and walked together around a ceremonial fire while a priest chanted in Sanskrit. To celebrate the marriage, all of the guests, from children to grandmothers, danced late into the night to hip hop and bhangra.
This was my fourth Hindu wedding, and I’ve been to a few more since then, all for friends who grew up in North Carolina.
The new kids in school
Growing up in Raleigh, I made friends whose families came from England, Egypt, China and India. I rode horses when I visited my cousins in Texas, but another friend rode camels with her cousins in Cairo, which sounded way cooler, especially to a ten year-old. I went to church most Sundays, but some of my friends worshipped at altars that held statues of elegant many-armed ladies and men with elephant heads.
I remember when I started to notice all the growth and change happening in my hometown. The first day of third grade, my teacher asked each of us to name our birthplace. “New York,” said one kid. “Pennsylvania,” said another. “New Jersey,” a couple of students replied. “Canada,” said another new classmate. Only a handful of us said, “North Carolina.” Many of the new students had just moved to Raleigh that summer, transferred when their parents’ jobs with companies like IBM and Northern Telecom moved south.
All grown up
People keep moving here every year. I hear the complaints about growth: too much traffic, crowded schools, and too many people from someplace else. Some of the changes have made my hometown bigger without making it better. Raleigh has more people to meet, more places to eat, more movies, plays, and art shows to see, but also more tract houses, more strip malls, fewer trees and less patience.
I can’t help but feel optimistic about the changes on the whole. Raleigh’s growth helped expose me to the wider world. All these new people bring with them tastes and traditions that make Raleigh a richer place to live, and I’m thankful for that.
On my own wedding day, I stuck to the traditional white gown. My husband entered the church on foot, not on horseback. I guess it’s no surprise that I moved away only to meet and marry a Raleigh native. We both left home and found someone who would bring us back to it. We came back home, and home just keeps getting more interesting.
