You are if you think you are. Being local is about identifying more with where you have moved to than where you had previously lived.
What about the folks who live in two places? Maybe NYC during the week and Millerton/Northeast on the weekends and vacations. Of course, initially we maintain all of our usual contacts, we choose to shop in stores familiar to us and we see the same doctors until either they die or we do.
But eventually.......................we begin to adapt to our second home or our new full-time residence. We discover Sapersteins, Oblong Books and Music, the local Library, the restaurant owners begin to recognize us and we know just what we want to order. We begin to adjust to the pace and the manner of speach. In our town and the countryside in general nearly everyone waves or says hello even if we don't know each other. Not so in some other areas. That takes a bit of getting used to as well.
Do you now pick up your paper at Terni's (you can find everything there, and if Phil doesn't carry it he will order it for you), then stop at Irving's for coffee, walk over to Herringtons to look at BenMoore paint charts, and then maybe stop by Agway for your birdseed (cold weather is coming soon and your feathered friends will be waiting for you). If this routine is becoming familiar to you then beware, you are beginning to become "a local".
Write in to tell us when you first started feeling a real part of the community. What experience especially made you feel accepted in Town. Was there a special moment when you knew you were "home"? Is there something you would like to see here or some service that would make you feel more at home.
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Just discovered the blog so I'm a few years late in responding to this post. I started renting a weekend cottage in Millerton almost 12 years ago. I was in the city all week and escaped every Friday afternoon for an oasis that none of my friends or family had ever heard of. They would go to the East End of Long Island, the Jersey Shore, New Hope or the Berkshires. But Millerton, where's that? And that's what I loved most. Only two hours from NYC, but it might as well been light years away.
I felt like a local the first time I went into Silamar Farms during asparagus season and asked Jill in disappointment, "Am I too late?" And Jill gave a sly smile turning to a basket behind the counter "It's not too late for my regulars." And she filled a bag with a pound of those beautiful fresh picked stalks, and quickly covered the rest of her stash. I felt like a local, the first time Sophia, formerly of Pasta At Large, left a line of customers at the counter to go outside and give my dog Miles one of her delicious meatballs as a treat. Or the first time Phil Terni modeled several of his fleece vests as I shopped for a birthday gift for my dad.
There have been so many of those moments over the years, that have made me realize that it was never about being accepted as a local but about me embracing my new home town. As much as I'll always be a downstate girl in my head, I've definitely become a Millerton girl in my heart.
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