February 29, 2016

When I moved to Rochester from Washington, D.C., 14 years ago, I remember a friend saying snarkily, “Well, at least it’s not Cleveland.”

I burst into tears.

At the time, Cleveland seemed somehow bigger, shinier, better than where I was going. I didn’t even know where Rochester was on a map; I thought “western New York” was a nickname for New Jersey.

In my head, I was moving to the middle of nowhere. I was leaving behind my friends and a career, but also culture, great food, and opportunity. And moving toward, well, lots of snow.

Or so I thought.

Later I realized that what I told myself about the move was really just a story I had made up. In the years since I’ve written a very different story—one I share out loud whenever I can.

But that only happened when I made a decision to rewrite my personal narrative. It became a tale of hope and abundance in the place I was living, instead of what I was missing from the place I came from.

It’s no surprise it took me a long time to adjust my eyes to what’s bright here in Rochester. I came from a very dark place known as Staten Island.

Or, again, that’s just the story I told myself growing up. But it didn’t help that Staten Island is often joked about as New York’s “forgotten borough.” That gets into your psyche.

Just think of the cinematic references to Staten Island. Tons of stories about buried bodies of crime lords. Or hopeful young women traveling on the ferry toward Manhattan, music swelling to suggest all the possibilities that await when you leave Staten Island.

Add to that my family’s point of view—one that doesn’t naturally gravitate toward optimism—and you’ve got a storyline that tends more toward Eeyore than Tigger.

About a year into living here, one of my new Rochester friends told me it would take five years before I felt like this was home. That seemed like a dreadfully long time.

It didn’t help that everyone, both here and outside of Rochester, kept asking me the same questions over and over about the move. They’d cock their heads to one side and say, “Are you OK?”

Like I’d skinned my knee and needed sympathy.

Then there was the other question I’d get: “Why did you move here?”

I heard other transplants answer that question this way: “For my (fill in the blank): family, husband, wife.”

And then, about three years after we moved here, amid a wintry-mix of a gray January day, something happened. I was about to walk into Wegmans when I looked in the rearview mirror and, instead of putting on lipstick, I slapped on a smile. And guess what? Someone smiled back.

There was a seismic shift. I stopped complaining and started celebrating. I chose to throw myself into meeting new people. I went to cultural events. I joined a local charity board and threw myself into its success, even co-chairing its gala because I didn’t know any better.

“Grateful for how little traffic we had. Grateful for my children’s childhood here. And, yes, grateful for Wegmans.”

I started being grateful for my life here. Grateful for our small airport, which I could get to in 10 minutes from my house. Grateful for how little traffic we had. Grateful for my children’s childhood here. And, yes, grateful for Wegmans.

When I changed my attitude, the story in my head started to change. And that changed the story I told others about Rochester.

Essentially, there are three types of people here. The natives who never leave. The natives who boomeranged. And, in my case, the Roc-virgins. Each of us, no matter the category, has control of our own private narrative about living here and how we feel about this place, but collectively we also help shape the public narrative that’s shared both here in Rochester and elsewhere in the world about Rochester.

There are the “our city was once great” stories; there are the stories complaining about today, and then there are the hopeful stories of a new future being forged.

I’ve seen that whole range in other cities similar to Rochester, too. But Rochester has always had amazing stories to tell. Some from the past are well-known: innovation and entrepreneurship (Kodak, Xerox, Bausch + Lomb); stories of free thinkers who changed the world (Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass).

We need to share not only our storied past but also revel in and share out loud our city’s present and future. Stories of music and art and culture, and of new rounds of innovation.

There are big stories unfolding today in business and downtown development. There are stories about our celebrations and festivals like Fashion Week and the Jazz Festival. And stories of heartwarming philanthropy happening every day.

There’s a great story unfolding in our food culture, thanks to “food-trepreneurs” like Charlie Fitzsimmons, Mike Calabrese, and Josh Miles.

Jodi and Greg Johnson moved back to Rochester to raise their kids and open the Cub Room in the South Wedge. Jodi says she feels like they came back at just the right time. After years of living in Westchester, they left their Manhattan restaurant to their partner to run so they could be hands-on each night at the Cub Room here.

Kate Antoniades, a boomeranger, curates a blog written by anyone who wants to write about the reasons they love Rochester (www.weloverochesterny.com). She’s married to a Roc-virgin from England; after years of living in the D.C. area, they decided they could have a better life here in Rochester instead of spending it sitting in traffic around the Beltway. They moved eight years ago to be closer to Kate’s family here, and while she says they miss their friends, there’s nothing else she misses. (By the way, when Kate’s parents dropped her off at college, she told them she’d never move back here.)

A few weeks ago, I spoke to the Rochester Rotary about rewriting our public narrative. This is a group that has contributed to Rochester’s story for more than 79 years through service to our community. Most recently, the Rotary Clubs built a gorgeous, state-of-the-art treehouse at the Sunshine Campus, which serves children with disabilities. It was featured on the DIY Network.

I couldn’t help but think about the new stories that will be told by each one of those children who will get to experience something special here because of the dedication of volunteers.

Yes, our Rochester story has challenges. Unite Rochester is working to change our public narrative on race, and the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative is working to change our story of poverty. These are real problems. But they’re only part of the story—another part is about the effort to change things.

A few years ago, a friend of mine back in Bethesda, Maryland, was at a conference for a charity she works with called A Wider Circle. She took a picture of the speaker, who was sharing his remarkable path to leadership, and she said, “This guy is amazing—you should watch out for him.” His name was Leonard Brock, and he’s now working to rewrite the story of Rochester with the Anti-Poverty Initiative. (For more on Brock, see this month’s cover story on page 42.)

In the end, we describe our lives in stories. As a community, it’s the same. So what story are we as Rochesterians going to tell? As we talk about Rochester, we need to remember people like Brock—the ones who are working on moving our story forward. That’s the story we should tell if we want to help make it a happy ending.

As First Published in the Democrat and Chronicle and USA Today Network