I have found a sense of place and familiarity in Centennial Woods but in the long scheme of things I have only been entering those woods for an extremely small fraction of my life. I think you can have a sense of place anywhere you feel a connection to, but some senses are stronger than others like how I have a stronger sense of place in Scituate, MA. This small-town south of Boston is where I have been living with my family for the past 7 years and where I grew up during the pivotal times of my life.
When I first moved to this town, I simply hated it. I couldn’t pronounce the town and was resentful towards the place because it uprooted me from my life in Norfolk, VA. I think my resentment stemmed from the fact that living in Norfolk was the place where I had ever had a strong sense of place. I had lived in other places before Norfolk, but I wasn’t old enough to create my own bonds with a place. After 7 years of living in this small town, I consider it my town. I love Scituate and all the people and places within town lines and am so grateful that I got to grow up there for some time. Going off the college made me fall in love with my town even more than I thought I could have. I live in a summer town which means that people come to vacation in Scituate, MA, and our population doubles. I could not understand why anyone in their right mind would ever want to vacation there but now I can appreciate it and see just how amazing the town is. Although I don’t know if I will be living there ever again in my life, I know that my sense of place to this area is so strong and I will be definitely coming back to visit.
My house is about a thousand yards from a beach which is great in every way possible but at the same time the reason that Scituate might be gone in a few decades. Scituate is an epicenter for all nor’easters and storms that roll by New England and because the land is at such a low elevation, the town is constantly flooded. Scituate is a coastal community and depends on the ocean and beaches for the main source of income of the town; tourism. The ocean is also the major thing that degrades the town, but the heart and souls of the “townies” prove resilient and I know that the town of Scituate will never be abandoned no matter the extremities of climate change.
Those resilient townies have a commonality amongst them aside from being extreme Patriot fans- they’re all white. Sure, there are some non-white residents Scituate, but that number is less than one percent. Scituate is the most Irish town in America and most people are Catholic. So, if you were to ask what an average Scituate person was, I would tell you that they are a white, Irish catholic with a last name like Murphy, Brown, or Sullivan. I had 4 Sullivan’s in my graduating class and none of them were related. These demographics bond people in this town but as a transplant, I felt it hard to adapt at first. My old school before Scituate was majority black and I was one of the only white girls, I’m not Irish, and I’m not religious so I was an outlier in the town. Almost everyone in the town is a member of the upper-middle class with many in the upper class and few in the lower class which can being daunting when you move from a poor area.
From the outside, Scituate can be described as a “preppy” town but it is so much more than that. I have made my best friends for life in this town and they are considered my family. I learned to drive a car there, I graduated high school, and my fondest memories in life are there. Writing this I am nostalgic of my past 7 years in Scituate and although it is completely different from the UVM atmosphere I would not change the way I grew up for anything in life. My sense of place in Scituate is so strong not only because of my positive memories but because an equal number of bad things happened to me there. I grew into the individual I am in that town and I think I would be completely different if I didn’t grow up there. I know for sure I wouldn’t have gone to as many Superbowl parades as I have if I didn’t live there. I think being able to live in an area for a good part of your life is important for an individual to develop themselves and be able to create a bond with the land they are living on and although I didn’t welcome the idea of living in Scituate, I know that eventually embracing the town was the best thing I ever did.
