The story behind the song: "Small Town Places"

I've been residing in Delaware a year and a half now. Yesterday, for the first time, I realized that I actually live here. Y'see, there's this thing called Rita's 'round these parts, and they give away free water ice on the first day of spring (which was yesterday). Despite growing up in what is essentially the rural Pennsylvanian suburbs of Newark, I never knew this 'till last year.

Not only did I enjoy free Rita's yesterday - every two seconds, it seemed like I was running into someone else I knew. People from church. People from work. People from meeting other people. Most of which I've only met within the last year.

It was really weird, coming back. If you asked me at 19 where I'd be when I grew up, I'da told you, "anywhere except there." It's not that I hated the place, there was just nothing to draw me back. Nothing, anyway, that overpowered the draw of wanderlust and the smell of adventure. As far as I was concerned, I'd seen everything to be seen.

College was adventure. Not knowing my way was adventure. Alaska and DC were an adventure. And developing a relationship with God, I finally found out, was the best adventure of all. Ironically, though, God called me back here. To go to a church that is two miles from where I grew up. God is funny like that. Whenever an area of pride gets broken down in me, I just laugh. It's absurd to be proud of anything in the face of a God that made everything.

During FAWM this year, I sat in the Eagle Diner on Elkton Road one night, having arrived early for want of a place to sit, drink coffee, and write. With a blank page before me, I began to stare blankly around the place, waiting for something to spill over from my mind into the notebook. As it turns out, there are these pencil sketches that adorn the walls of the Eagle. I've been going to this place nearly every Thursday for a year now, and though the sketches are for sale, not a one of them has ever sold. Probably because they're of random locations in a tiny little town, and to be honest, they're nobody's masterpiece.

But the poorly-rendered locations caught and snagged on a corner of my prickly little heart, and I realized that those places actually mean something to me. What's more, I wasn't as irritated about it as I thought I'd be - irritated at being stuck in a dinky little town with nothing to offer, when I could be wandering and boldly executing my life as I saw fit out in God-knows-where.

Instead, I'm here, and I'm happy, because there is an adventure to be lived here. Many adventures. With many people. Who are wonderful. And with God, who is also wonderful.





The Eagle Diner, according to recent reports, is slated to close on Monday, March 28th. Granted, it's been rumored to have been closing for the entire last year, but I think this is for reals. And I actually care about it, which is strange and wonderful in its own right. We had our FAWM Meet and Greet at the Eagle Diner. I met so many awesome people there. I honestly remember the first time I was invited to hang with folks there, which was a blessing in a painful time. Had so many late-night conversations, the kind that are deep and surprise you with how they sneak up on you. Got yelled at for being too loud. And I wrote this song there.


"Small Town Places" (click to listen)

Everything inside was screaming "run while you can";
you listened to the whisper whose small refrain was "stay."
There's never been a town where you imagined settling down;
"anywhere but here" is the prayer that you'd pray.

And now the small town places are hangin' on the wall,
places made of wherewithal and spit.
They're the landmarks on your tour of insanity du jour;
offered up the bullet and you bit.

You're a voice without a vision, firing cannons in the dark,
blindly aiming by the only light you see.
As cities throw their detritus of beams into the sky,
the country moon is watchin' all horizons bleed.

And now the small town places are hangin' on the wall,
sketches never bought or sold.
They're the X's on the map of your adventure and a half,
a tale that's not worth telling 'till it's told.

(interlude)

And now the small town places are passin' as you go,
familiar streets and old decrepit stores.
Occupying the real estate on the wall of things you can't escape,
and you don't think you mind it anymore.

You don't think you mind it anymore.

No, you don't really mind it anymore.