Lyme

Driving in an area that still hasn't mapped itself out in my mind in relation to the areas north, south, east, and west of it, and a memory comes back to me. I don't know how long ago it was, but it was pretty long. My friend and I had gone to Old Lyme, for reasons now lost. Old Lyme seemed far away, then, and almost foreign. We got lost. We saw the sign for Lyme, we must have crossed the town line, though I don't remember this white library with its little clock-tower and wreathed door. We saw the sign for Hamburg. We had never heard of Hamburg. We were getting too far afield, going who knows where, we might never get back. It was getting a little too German. We turned around, and managed, somehow, to return to the coast.

Lyme is northwest of several towns I know well, east (across the water) from some towns I know half-well, southeast and very reminiscent of some little villages on the Connecticut River that I'd like to know better. Lyme throws me off, its borders aren't where I think they should be. It conceals sections I haven't seen yet, hidden away beyond this pristine, church-like Town Hall. It reminds me that there are so many little micro-worlds within this state that I haven't yet started to comprehend.

I asked the friend who I got lost with me all those years ago, "Hey remember the time when we went to Old Lyme but we went to Lyme by mistake and we saw the sign for Hamburg and turned around?" And she said, "I don't remember Hamburg at all, sorry."