The Panorama of Home

When I moved to Providence, over twenty years ago, I remember someone asking me why I had decided to move to the city. I stared blankly for a few seconds before explaining that I had arrived from my hometown of New York City, so I was actually moving away from the city. In my mind, I was most certainly not in the city because I had to get a driver’s license and a car, and that had not been anywhere in my mind, at any point in my life, until I got here. I also knew I wasn’t in a big city because the skyline in Providence is so different from New York. In a world of endless skyscrapers, the horizon is a perpetual manifestation of industry. Every vantage point in Manhattan says that mankind is endlessly powerful, capable of making a mark on every corner of the world. Even Central Park defines by comparison: rolling meadows and ponds, surrounded by steel and iron.

Back when we were little, our parents used to send us off to sleepaway camp to try and get some fresh air for a few weeks in the summer. And there, Ellen and I were in a very different environment. We trekked daily from the main campground to the lake but the scenery remained the same: thick forests, acres of grass, and water so clean you could see rocks on the lake floor without submerging your head. And somewhere along the line - maybe when I returned as a counselor years later - I started to consider the impact of horizon on personal philosophy. After all, my home in NYC told me every day that people were more consequential than nature. My time at camp told me the exact opposite: that the landscape was divine and that we barely registered on the map of Mother Nature, who held not only power but glory. It was, for many years, a life of stark contrasts and sometimes mutually exclusive perspectives.

And then, as an adult, I moved to Providence which is altogether different. There are elements of the city (office buildings, a train station, several universities), but there are also things you’d never find in a major metropolis: an enduring architectural history, family connections strewn across the state, and a true sense of community. Cities have neighborhoods, of course, as we do. But Providence - and Rhode Island in general - has a webwork of personal relationships that are rare in any place, at any time. Lineage lines of Cape Verdeans, Portuguese, French Canadians, and Italians go way back, businesses intertwine, and struggles are often shared by the masses rather than the few. It’s part of the reason that we love operating a business here: because residents take pride in building and supporting anything that enriches the broader community. Food, art, music, marathons, fundraisers - everything is fair game if it creates deeper bonds between the people who live together in our ocean-lined enclave. Maybe it’s part of the reason that the state of Rhode Island holds fast to its history. We remember the people who conceived of a city based on tolerance and inclusion - and we continue that work to this day, not brick by brick (or transaction by transaction), but friend by friend. That’s not to say I don’t miss New York. I’m still a bad driver and long for a subway every single day. But, in the thick of spring, how privileged we are to share a table or a conversation or a debate with this small, special group of people who can call themselves Rhode Islanders. Here’s to our small, mighty community and the local business owners who bring their heritage, culture, and stories together to make Providence a more dynamic place to live.