My Town

Today I saw a woman walking up Main Street in her brassiere. As I rubbernecked my way through the small street lined with shops that were each one rental payment away from being crushed by WalMart, sweat pooled in the small of my back and dripped down into places I probably shouldn't mention if I'd like to reserve any right whatsoever to comment on the classiness of this situation. The point is, it was hot.

The woman in her underwear was clutching an infant to her chest. In one hand, a yellow tee shirt hung in limp disuse. Her gait was slow. She and a companion trudged heavily past the Army/Navy store. The baby appeared tiny, sucked up as it was by her cavernous folds.

I leaned forward against the steering wheel to tug my own soggy tank top away from my body, all the while staring across one lane and onto the sidewalk, as I began to question my own rush to judgement.

First of all, the woman had a newborn. That, right there, proved she was crazy. If she wasn't a little loopy before deciding to produce spawn, the act of birthing a baby and bringing it home would most certainly have gotten her there. The post-partum cocktail of hormones and the demands of caring for a human being who wants nothing more than to be reinserted into the womb will make anyone nuts. It's a marvel to me that I wasn't limping down Main Street in a pair of stretchy afterbirth panties and a nursing bra during the days following my own daughter's arrival, one long, hot summer ago.

Secondly, I knew to expect many scenes of questionable taste when I moved here. Mine is a closed-down mill town, and though more and more suburban transplants are taking root as the Boston and Providence housing markets drive them out, the fact remains that a lot of this town's residents don't care about impressing anybody. Some of them don't really care about anything, but that's a subject for many different blog entries than this one. One could say things here are a little slower than the rest of Connecticut, a little less affected by the events of a changing world, a little more resistant to change. One could say that's good. Someone else could say that's bad.

I say it's an interesting debate, but not one I meant to start with my example of the new mama on her slow march through the town center, only quasi-clothed. Mostly I wanted to convey to you the heat of this New England summer, and a town laid bare by progress. That's all.

But they say there's a strip mall going in. I'll keep you posted.