Good gracious, how I have forgotten.  Time and distance seem to act as blinders in remembering a place - they shape your memories, and you return to rediscover the things you've shaded out of your memory.  For example, the pace and attitude of life in Massachusetts.  I love this state, it is my home and I have some of the most amazing memories from here.  And, when I left, those sweet memories are the things that my heart held on to - which, in my opinion, is a very good thing.  However, I forgot about how fast things move here.  And I forgot how cold people here can be.  Not that I haven't met people who are cold in Arizona, but for many it has become just a way of life here.  Having lived in Prescott for the last two and a half years, the differences are quite clear, in a rather surprising way.  And I don't believe it's just that people here are more bitter - no, it is just that it is almost necessary here.  I mean, the difference I notice is in strangers.  In Arizona, everyone you make eye contact with you greet and perhaps even socialize with, complete strangers approach you in stores, parking lots, restaurants, and begin conversations with you.  I remember how startled I was the first time that happened to me when I initially moved out there.  In Massachusetts - maybe New England in general - you don't interact with strangers unless some outside circumstance requires it to be able to continue on with your day.  If you do, you are, as a rule of sorts, glared at or ignored as (a) a tourist, or (b) a crazy person.  How strange, to feel suddenly like a tourist in your hometown.  I do love this place, though.


-CuriousBlue