My Town – Danny Buck
The students recently attended the current Center Stage production of the iconic play, “Our Town.” Their subsequent Creative Writing topic: “My Town” wherein “their town” might be a city, a neighborhood, a room, or a state of mind. Here is Danny’s thoughtful essay.
MY TOWN
My town is my room. I don’t really do things outside like most kids in my age range. Because of this, I don’t know any streets or any people in my neighborhood. My room suffices as a town in my opinion. It’s where I do everything I like. It’s where I read Manga, where I look into philosophy, where I eat, where I sleep, and where I watch videos. It’s ironic in a way. Because of social media, people’s “worlds” have become smaller. They have access to limitless communication and knowledge of the world at the touch of a button. In some ways, this is negative. I am no different.
My town isn’t special. Like many other “towns,” it has a bed, television, a
dresser and closet to store your clothes, and a gaming console if you’re interested in that. On my window sill, I have many books. On my dresser I have miscellaneous items like a blacklight, usually my keys, and a spare charger. I have cards for various events and celebrations, mostly from past birthdays, but some from graduations. On my TV stand there are many video games that I don’t play very often, and my town has windows that I rarely ever look out of during the day. I only ever look out of my window at night, I like to watch the few celestial bodies that I can still see despite the amount of light pollution in the city. Every so often the moon is interesting enough for me to look at for a long time, and I like to imagine I live there.
My town extends from my room to the moon—a place where you can look down
and observe the whole world. It’s only me up there in the cold silence with an all-encompassing vision, yet not sharp enough to see each individual person that passes by. Being alone personified, yet not feeling lonely. This describes a portion of the condition my age group is in today, but I experience it in a different way.
I like to think, when I’m up there mentally, that I am truly able to wonder and observe all things I’m curious about. Reading, watching, observing every topic I feel interested in at that moment but still not able to connect to anybody daily other than things like school.
The moon for centuries was a time piece, with every phase constantly changing throughout the month, and with its shining brilliance people also used it to describe change. I change mentally and philosophically in my room, but socially I’ve never changed.
One of my favorite paintings of all time ‘Son of Man’ is a painting about your changing visibility in the presence of what is known, and the changing visibility of what is there to truly see. Rene Magritte painted it as a self-portrait,
but I like to think, just like him, I similarly have the apple over my face both in a social lens and in all aspects of knowledge. My goal is to learn more and to enjoy life through that by being a greater person. This also applies to another one of Magritte’s paintings.
‘The False mirror’ is a painting that describes the limitations of human vision, the reflection of the sky similar to the way I observe the moon. The
eye, removed from its place in the skull and with no face to orient it, shows to some extent a lack of knowledge about the self. A separation from the conscious
and unconscious mind. So it is with my room. A constant process of translation between the conscious and unconscious takes place in my room. It is where I learn more about myself.
My room is my home. The moon is my home. They are my town.
Danny Buck
9/30/22