The story below is from our January/February 2022 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
How Roanoke captivates us — and then doesn’t let go.
I vividly remember the moving van snaking down our tight Raleigh Court street 16 years ago.
It was the start of a new chapter, I knew. What I felt, though, was exhausted and overwhelmed and unsure of what lie ahead.
We had come from Durham, North Carolina, a city where I had deep roots — I’d gone to college nearby, my husband and I bought our first home in one of its historic neighborhoods, my two children had been born there.
My husband’s job at an architecture firm — as well as a wish to live closer to the mountains and in a less sprawling community — had lured us to Roanoke.
I’d be lying if I said I was instantly smitten. Our 1940s brick colonial needed work. The kids were a handful. And back then, in 2006, I had a paper map that I kept in my car where I looked up street names alphabetically on the back and located them on a letter-number grid on the front, in order to find my way anywhere. The map was ripping at the seams. I was constantly lost.
Yet, day after day, my five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter and I ventured out in our new city. We visited parks and libraries, farmers markets and festivals. Soon enough, we made friends at preschool and settled in at a new church. Art projects began to decorate our walls. A garden blossomed in the backyard dirt. By 2007, another baby was on the way.
As a family of five, we biked on the greenways and camped at Roanoke Mountain. We picked strawberries and blueberries and apples and pumpkins. We played games together in coffeeshops and lined parade routes around holidays.
Every year, we learned new things about our Star City. And every experience, every interaction tied us more tightly to it.
Yet — perhaps because Roanoke has so many people who were born here and graduated high school here and left as young adults to return once they had families of their own, or maybe never left at all — it took longer than I expected to forge deep connections to this place. To feel like I belonged.
But, eventually, I did.
Unlike moving day, I don’t recall the moment when I first thought of myself as a Roanoker.
It was more a gradual awakening that happened when, at every school my kids attended, at every after-school activity we tasted (and there were so many), at every group we volunteered with, we were introduced to a new corner of our city and the new faces that frequented it.
At some point, we encountered enough faces to be able to recognize friends wherever we went. That’s when Roanoke became home.
Here’s how it feels to call this city home.
When I walk through Hotel Roanoke, I am flooded with visions of crazily decorated Christmas trees and swims in the pool with out-of-town family and conferences in the ballrooms and date nights in the restaurants.
When I hike to the Mill Mountain Star, I recall cheering my son and husband at their trail races, walking our dog through the glowing fall woods, hiking nearly every Friday morning for years with a dear friend.
When I slip my toes into the Roanoke River, I am taken back to the times when my toddlers dug in its sandy banks or my elementary-school-aged kids picnicked beside it or my teens kayaked it and built cairns from its rocks.
These places are precious to me because they hold so many memories.
No, I was not born in Roanoke. But 16 years is the longest I’ve lived in any home. And in that time my roots have burrowed as deep and wide as the roots of the huge sweet gum tree that grows on the edge of my yard. There is little in my life that has not been shaped by this place — by its rainbows and its theaters and its restaurants and its chilly winds and pink cherry blossoms.
Today, more people are moving to Roanoke from other places, as I did. Places like Iowa and South Carolina — and China and India and Afghanistan.
I hope they find Roanoke to be a welcoming place.
I hope they embrace their community — and feel embraced back by it.
Actually, I’m realizing I can do more than hope this. As a Roanoker, I guess it’s my turn now to welcome them.
The story above is from our January/February 2022. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!
