First Impressions

Photos and story by Carli Woodyear

I sat in the driver’s seat of my car, parked next to Market Salamander, magazines in my lap. The day I’d spent in Middleburg was as confusing as it was exciting. I had learned about wine production and the library, local art and businesses, and, of course, all of you.

Upon my arrival, I knew little to nothing about the game of polo, or small-town life. I was a city-girl, suddenly, walking on brick sidewalks, smelling mulch and seeing green. Rolling green. Stretches of hills that looked endless, but, reminded you that nothing is.

I tugged on my neck scarf as I closed my car door — why was I wearing a neck-scarf when it was 78 degrees out? I was more than a little nervous for my first day as an intern here. I walked past restaurants serving families and wondered if they lived here. I wondered if they thought I lived here. Or if they thought I was an outsider. I’d spent the entire day as an intern being asked where I was from. “D.C.” I said, but before that it was Pittsburgh, and, much longer ago, the flat, hot lands of Louisiana. But no one really cared. No one really wants to know where you’re from. That’s meaningless. When they ask, “where are you from?” what they really mean is “where do you belong?”

It smells like grass in Middleburg. Fresh-cut. It sounds like Sunday morning, waking up to your neighbor’s lawn-mower. It looks like a french town, shutters open, strangers who aren’t strange at all sharing waves and passing smiles. And the feeling — it tugged at my memory.

As I hopped up the steps to a store-front a fly buzzed in my ear, louder than my thoughts, and as I swatted it away I felt an odd sense of comfort. I know I should’ve been impressed with the modernity of the buildings, or how meticulously planned the layout of the town seemed, but instead I was distracted by the land. I noticed the horse shops and the gardens that were being tended as I went about my day. I noticed the easy expression on the library receptionist’s face, the kind of look only achieved by years of gentle care and dedication. And that look forced me to remember a time, distant now, but still buried within me, of tall trees, bees, and humidity. And I knew, the second my hair frizzed up and the man on the corner, whacking weeds wiped his brow, that this was a grown-up’s paradise. It offered belonging, and it begged me to remember the times when I was small, knee-deep in mulch, living easy, living young, taken care of. Belonging to one place, deep in the South.

After I’d ordered my lunch at Market Salamander I sat and ate, happy with the knowledge that even though the saying says that you can never truly return home, you can find a place pretty darn close. ML