The Song Remains the Same

I've had almost countless numbers of folks tell me, as if I were not aware of it, that  'Norwich is not ...' (a town in this region known for having Julia Roberts work in a pizzeria). 

Thanks. I've lived in southeastern Connecticut long enough to recognize the truth in that statement. As a matter of fact, the list of other places that Norwich is NOT is longer than my arm, but I think that's part of the problem residents, old and new, have with our city and with one another. 

With municipal elections around the corner and lawn signs being the seasonal growth industry with "Make Norwich More Affordable," and "Make Norwich Safer," starting to bubble up, let me offer a less than popular perspective that, just to piss off a LOT of people, over the next months for what will seem like an interminable number of times. You know who I'm talking to/about, and you should be grateful I am so patient. 

"How can we be in if there is no outside?" We need to agree on definitions of who we are, as residents and neighbors, and how we chose to be here. I will concede some people have settled in Norwich as a result of losing a bar bet; we can probably remove them from this discussion; but everyone else, old, young, male, female, whatever color/gender/sexual preference in the rainbow you choose to be, all the rest of us are in this together, some more so than others. And if I may, let's define ourselves in positive terms.

As a parent of two young children, when my wife and I settled here in the fall of 1991, neither we nor Norwich is the same as we are today. What we are looking for now, a small city with interesting places to meet, stores in which to shop, and restaurants in which to eat, is different from what those with school children seek, or those working shifts at one of the casinos, or those who lived their lives here and are looking forward to a quiet retirement. And all of us look to those who lead the city to deliver to each of us what we want.

Those who have been here for decades have memories and meanings that we who've arrived more recently can't comprehend or understand. Long-time residents look at downtown and see the ghosts of Norwich Past and fear that none of what once was can ever return. 

Others, travelling through the same downtown to elsewhere, see potential and promise all along the route, even if it's not 'textbook downtown', while still others see only empty storefronts and defeat. The challenge is not that we each see a different Norwich, but that each of our visions of where we live shares a common theme that often has us as victims, powerless to change our own story.

That's where we need to accept that change begins with us and moves from house to house, street to street, and across every neighborhood. We've tried countless variations of "help needs to come from Hartford or Washington or from the lone developer on the grassy knoll." And when all is said, nothing is done. 

Some of us seem to think we must do everything ourselves and wait until the world is ready to find us. Except when you look at the history of here, Norwich has always been at its best when it has been a part of the bigger world. 

It's when we've retreated into our separate villages and eyed those approaching from beyond our city limits with suspicion and distrust that we have failed. We've spent so much time waiting for "our" moment that we cannot even define, much less recognize, it.

It's what we do in the space between our birth and death, choosing to be an exclamation or an explanation, that matters. We have become a city of cynics who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. And nothing brings that out like municipal elections. Every new idea, every different proposal, is examined to see what benefit 'they' derive at 'our expense.' Why does any of that matter? 

When we talk to one another, not at each other; when we choose collaboration over confrontation; no matter who we have been until that moment, we all become citizens of the same city, the city we each call home Yes, Virginia, the cliche is really true: we are all in the same boat, but it's in an ocean of opportunity. Grab an oar and put your back into it.
-bill kenny