In my great aunt’s backyard, there used to be an oak tree tall enough to reach past the roofs and cover garages spread around the neighborhood. For years, the leaves of that oak tree watched as family members sat around patio tables, gesticulating and telling stories. It watched my cousins and me go from crawling in the grass to walking on it. It watched my great-grandpa turn 99 and then 100. 

In 2018, a tornado tore through Erie, Pennsylvania, knocking the oak tree down, ripping apart the patio cover and blowing in my great-aunt’s kitchen window. Now, there is only a stump remaining of the tree that was once there but never will be again.  

When I think about everything that has changed in my life — the texture of my hair, my height, the number of living parents I have — my mind often drifts to Erie, Pennsylvania and all the ways one simple city mirrors the changes, waves and evolutions that have taken place in the past few decades. A looking glass, if you will. 

Erie sits on the shore of Lake Erie, its biggest attraction being Presque Isle State Park, a peninsula dotted with beaches and light towers. The city sits in the middle; one hour west and you’re in Ohio, one hour east and you’re in New York. 

When I was younger, Erie was the stuff of summer dreams. I viewed it through a golden lens. The small-town feel was so unlike the boring, droll suburban life I led in San Diego. In Erie, kids rode their bikes down to the lake and walked from their houses to mom and pop ice cream shops in the middle of the day. Houses were amongst the trees and neighbors exchanged pleasantries across their fenceless yards.  

Though I only spent two weeks there every summer, starting when I was 7 years old, Erie remained in my mind constantly. When I was there, I was a small-town girl; the girl in books with sun-soaked covers and main characters who lived vastly different lives than my own. It was my favorite place in the world. 

Nothing is as it once was or ever will be again. I’m convinced I’ve heard these words before, read them somewhere or seen them fly by on a billboard, but an extensive internet search yielded no answers or origin. And yet, the words echo constantly.

As I grew older, from ages 15 to 18 to 20, the gold hue of Erie began to wear off. The quaint, brick houses turned into small, rundown homes on the rougher side of town. Family-owned diners turned into failing chain restaurants. The lake was, and still is, the lake, but it also became the setting for crimes worthy of a documentary. The people I always thought must be incredibly kind stare when my little sister and I walk by in our “city” clothes, with our “exotic” hair. “Let’s Go Brandon” flags hang from houses. 

This past summer, my cousin and I sat outside a Wegman’s Market in Erie eating deli sandwiches and chatting, something we’d done several times before. We were interrupted by her ex-tennis coach, in khaki shorts and a “Let’s Go Brandon” shirt. 

She introduced me as her cousin from California, and his response was that I lived in a “scum state.” He hoped I didn’t speak Spanish and made sure to tell me that Disneyland was grooming children. 

In 2016, Erie leaned towards Trump in the presidential election by 1%. In 2020 it leaned towards Biden by the same margin. The political polarization that we often hear about has seeped into Erie, changing how I view it and how it views itself. 

Maybe, the city hasn’t changed. Maybe I have. I’m older now with stronger opinions. When my grandma died while we were in Erie two summers ago, the city left a sour taste in my mouth that was difficult to wash away. Maybe there’s a reason the girls in the books always wish to escape their small town. Maybe such things are not meant to stay the same. 

In the past year former CEO of Erie Insurance and billionaire Thomas B. Hagen bought several decomposing houses in the West Sixth Street neighborhood. He is restoring the historic houses to their former glory, reviving them after decades. My cousin and I drove down that street, passing brick houses that resemble great colonial homes, things that can so easily evolve into something the same, but also new. 

Nothing is as it once was or ever will be again. A truth can only be denied for so long, especially when it is built on childlike dreams. Erie will never be that beautiful, small town I constructed in my mind. Maybe it never existed at all. 

I don’t wish it to disappear. I don’t wish to never return. Instead, I hope Erie might change, just as we do. The tree is now a stump, the houses will soon be revived. Nothing stays as it was, so I wait. I wait to see what Erie becomes next.