Return to Normalcy

I am back in my hometown, so to speak. The place where I grew up is familiar and strange, not just because I've spent so little time here over the past fifteen years. I think it was always sort of strange in a way. It was strange in that so many people in this region, and even in other parts of the country, thought that the place was normal. It was so normal that it was frequently depicted in fiction or invoked in political and cultural discussions as the epitome of the average, the typical, the regular. It specificities had been sanded down, even in the minds of some of its citizens. I met a guy from Chicago who insisted that he didn't have an accent because there was no Chicago accent. He just spoke normally. Sure, groups of people have always said, "Oh, those people over there are weird. Those people talk funny." But the people where I grew up could say these things with a conviction that I have not seen matched by anyone else in this country. And people elsewhere in the country would speak with an equally strong conviction about the blandness of the region surrounding my hometown. Surely, the germ of the place was ground away. It's strip malls are somehow more stripped. The people in the West know we are cultureless because that's what they've seen in the media that they produce. The people in the East know that we are dull because they cannot see our edges. The people in the South know we are passionless because we aren't as demonstrative. Our normalness was both inspiring and terrifying, like a blank page. Or maybe more like a slice of bread, comforting or boring.

I guess the middle is easy to equate with the normal. But it's no more or less normal than anyplace else. This seems so obvious to me that I feels odd to point it out, yet I am compelled to mention it.