One

ONE

Technically a story starts wherever you want it to start.

When you start writing it down, that could be the start of the story. Or maybe the story started before you started writing it down, but then the story was so good you thought. . .

This is really good; I should write this down.

It’s possible the answer to where and when a story starts has something to do with the space-time continuum, and if it does, I would not be the person to talk about that. I am not a space-time continuum kind of person. I’m more of an arts-and-crafts kind of person, which can be just as serious as space-time, especially if you spill purple glitter (or any other color of glitter) on the carpet.

Pretty serious.

I don’t recommend you do this because then glitter will be in that space between the fibers of your carpet for the time period of for ever.

Of course, sometimes you’re working on a particularly cool objet d’art in your living room because you just moved into a new house and your craft area hasn’t been set up yet and these things can’t be helped.

And now we’re into the story.

It’s already started!

If we’re being picky about it, all this already happened and I’m going back in time to tell you the story of how I became Anne of Greenville (formerly Anne of a Few Cities Other Than Greenville). It’s also the story of how I found my true true, and how I needed to maybe come to Greenville, of all places, to make that happen.

Speaking of Greenville, I should probably set the scene a little. Because if you don’t know Greenville, and arguably, if you don’t live here, you’ve probably never heard of Greenville (I hadn’t), you might need a little wiki info to get you started.

Greenville is a very small town in a state that is about six states to the east of any state I have ever lived in. It’s what Millie, my mom, who was born in a small town called Pepperdown, North Carolina (so cute, right?), calls The Ultimate Small Town. Greenville’s total pop. when we arrived was 5,004 (5,007 once my family moved in—so that sign will need to be changed).

My first impression of Greenville was that it was very, very hard to see anything, because it was night. And night in Greenville is, like, really really dark. I arrived with my two moms in a U-Haul full of mostly books and cooking supplies, as well as our ginger cat, Bjorn, and our golden retriever, Monty. Greenville dark is not like city dark, where every street is lit up by a streetlight, as if you had a house and every room had a lamp on. Greenville felt like a house with no lamp on. Admittedly, when I first looked out the moving-van window at our new town, awakened from an in-van nap by a “we’re almost there,” my heart kind of sank. I felt like I was looking out into the void, and it was looking back at me. And not in a pleasant way.

As we pulled into our driveway, Monty looked out the window and whined. I opened the van door and the only thing in the wind was the soft rustle of leaves and crickets.

That’s it.

A few more things about Greenville I noticed once I actually saw it in the daylight:

Greenville is the kind of place where everyone keeps a wreath on their door. Even if it isn’t a winter holiday. Most of these wreaths are decorated with plastic flowers.

Greenville is the kind of place where everyone has two cars because everything is so far apart you have to drive everywhere (unless you roller-skate, which I think is preferable).

Most of Greenville doesn’t have sidewalks, maybe because everyone drives (see #2).

All the trees in Greenville are puffy and green, like someone drew them with a crayon.

Greenville is a place that feels both very very big and very very small. Like maybe because there’s no tall buildings, there’s so much more room for the ground and the sky to stretch out, which feels big. But also there’s so little to look at besides the green ground and the blue sky, it feels. . .small.

Mostly I couldn’t decide if any of the things I noticed about Greenville were good or bad. Maybe because I couldn’t decide what they meant. And where in them would fit the puzzle that was me. Or vice versa.

I tried not to think about it those first few days. I unpacked (sort of), lost Bjorn (three times), found Bjorn (three times), and made papier-mâché disco globes (because I had all the materials).

And then, on the day of the beginning of my story, which, yes, we’re now getting to, it was sunny, I had to start thinking about it.

Greenville and me.

It was August, so, it was hot. Not like your-sequins-are-going-to-melt-off-you hot (which is too hot). But hot.

I loaded my newly (sort of) dry disco globes into the back of Millie’s car because she was going to drop me off in the town center while she went off to do house stuff like go buy forks because we still couldn’t find any forks, which was weird because we could find spoons and we definitely packed forks! (What, were the forks and spoons fighting or something? Did the spoons win?) During the drive, Millie eyeballed my disco balls. “Those aren’t going to get glitter all over my car, are they?”

I’d lived in small cities before Greenville, just FYI, but most of them had at least three grocery stores and a corporate retail chain or two. Greenville had: A grocery store, A drugstore, and A post office, plus An ice cream parlor, A place to get wings, and A place to buy running shoes. OH. And A pizza place.

It was Saturday and pretty much everyone seemed to be out and about; everywhere you could see the citizens of Greenville walking around with ice cream cones and shopping bags in groups of three or four, in what I would call Greenville’s Times Square, the intersection of the streets of Main, Center, and Division. One thing I will say, as far as town squares went, Greenville’s was at least very clean. No garbage anywhere. Everyone seemed to have their natural hair color, and everyone except me was wearing sandals and nice shirts. And shorts/pants obviously.

Imagine moving to a town where no one wears pants.

After assessing what space was available, I picked a spot by a big brass statue of an old white man and started hanging up my globes on the signposts, at which point an old guy with white hair under a white baseball cap started surveilling me with what I hoped was a mix of curiosity and anticipation.

I taped my last papier-mâché disco ball to the last post and placed my speaker at the edge of what I determined to be my “performance space.” I strapped on my favorite pair of roller skates, which are orange leather with green sparkly wheels and yellow laces, which not coincidentally matched the orange and green of my amazing polyester sequined jumpsuit with extra-wide bell-bottom cuffs (custom, obv). Putting on my skates is very often, if not the best part of my day, like, pretty high up there on the list. I personally, not that anyone has asked, think everyone should own a pair of roller skates. It’s like putting wings on your feet, like that god Hermes, but with way less family baggage.

I took a breath.

I pressed play and set the wheels in motion (literally) for my introduction to Greenville, by way of a hastily assembled roller disco performance to the best song in the world: “Funkytown.”

Extended mix.

My moms say I have a tendency to get “lost” in things: Millie says I am a daydreamer, Lucy will say I am sometimes easily distracted. Both are definitely true when I am making art or performing. I don’t know what a person is supposed to be thinking when they’re making art, or dancing, or singing. I mean it’s not like my brain stops working when I’m doing any of these things. But it definitely works different. Like when I’m just normal me, I can see the things that are in front of me, like a tree, or a fountain, or a lamp. When I’m making art, it’s like everything gets. . .intense? Or like, lighter but deeper?

Like, I can see the things, but I can also see all these things that could be. Like all the symbolism jumps out, and the fountain is suddenly “flow” and “rejuvenation” and all that junk. And I can see me in those things, in these evolving worlds, I guess? And in those evolving worlds, anything is possible.

Anything is possible feels like a fresh slice of lemon in your brain.

I could feel the smile spreading out over my lips as my skates glided over the pavement.

As my wheels rolled over the concrete, everything went rainbow gooey. The sequins on my outfit flashed in the sun and sent little prism rainbows around the square, which was what I’d hoped would happen. About two minutes into the song, after a series of slow swoops around the fountain, just to let people know what I was about, I did a back walkover into a spin and down into the splits.

That kind of move is what is called a “crowd pleaser” in that way most circus/gymnastics–type stuff is crowd pleasing (or Cirque du Soleil wouldn’t exist). This move is normally where I pause, if only for a moment, and take in what Lucy calls “the temperature of the room.”

Or the square in this case.

I looked up from my splits, my palms pressed onto the baking pavement of the square, to the equally heated glares of the residents of Greenville, some with ice creams, some without.

Not the best reception.

Which was not entirely unpredictable.