worcester, a rediscovered love story

The other day I went to tape an interview on the Hank Stolz Experience at Channel 3. It’s the second time I’ve been there with my fellow Worcester Writers Collaborative founder and kindergarten chum, Cheryl. We were there to promote our upcoming event at Tatnuck Bookseller, before heading off to a second interview about the Collaborative… all of which was squished between the uprooting of my life and temporary re-settling that took place this weekend.

It has been a bit of a tornado these recent weeks… maybe months. I can’t really remember when the whirlwind started – some point after being sick over Thanksgiving when I resolved things I must accomplish in 2012. And of course, as soon as I made up my mind about those goals, life threw in a few extra bits for good measure.

But anyway, back to Hank Stolz. He’s a very nice man. I like his interviews. They are like conversations. Both times I’ve sat in his studio, I’ve been fascinated by the conversations he had with the guests that preceded our segments. This week it was Timothy McGourthy, Worcester’s Chief Development Officer. The main focus of his talk was the development of City Square. Wait. What? Development of Worcester?

If you had told me two years ago that I would have gone back to Central Massachusetts, I would have either laughed or rolled my eyes at you. Worcester, I’ve often felt, suffered an inferiority complex and could never get its act together enough to do anything. Only… as I realized listening to Mr. McGourthy speak the other day… it actually did that. And then as if to confirm the veil lifting from a blurred assessment of my birthplace, Forbes ranked Worcester as the #2 happiest city in which to work in the U.S.

But those are details and statistics… and journalistic spin. What can’t be captured in those reports is the heart, the energy, the excitement in the city that I was convinced couldn’t get itself off the ground ten years ago. Maybe it wasn’t possible then. Or maybe I was just blind to the possibility.  

I see it now. And it is so very exciting.