By Claire Marshall Watkins, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
I remember being 12, sitting on the swing set in my friend Alison’s backyard, and when she asked how I felt about Fredericksburg telling her that I couldn’t wait to get out as soon as I could. I did it, too. I left at 18 to attend a small, historically women’s college (even though it was six months into the Covid-19 pandemic) and I stayed for three years, except for a semester abroad in London.
At 21, nearly a decade after that middle-school conversation with Alison, I found myself back in Fredericksburg after a health scare. I transferred to the university where my dad had once taught, and where my mother and grandmother both graduated. Even after my best effort to get away, I found myself as a third-generation University of Mary Washington alumna.
Though I still condemn the school for its administrative faults, particularly the arrest of 12 peaceful protestors in April 2025, I am eternally grateful for my experience there. I forged so many meaningful, fulfilling friendships, began my journalism career, hosted a radio show, was active in various clubs, and immersed myself in my English department classes and activities.
One of my favorite memories from my time at Mary Wash was the English Department symposium at the end of my senior year. I gave several talks, one of them a group presentation by my “Women in Modernism” class. Our professor, Dr. Mara Scanlon, brought in accessories for us to all dress thematically for the course—mostly late-19th and early-20th century English and American—and we took turns giving readings from the novels we’d studied. I wore a vintage bonnet and read from Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, with which I had fallen in love.
That final term, I rented most of my books on campus. When I returned them after the symposium, I couldn’t part with My Ántonia, so ended up buying my rental. It’s an American novel which starts with the protagonist, Jim, moving from Virginia to Nebraska––like Cather herself––but I couldn’t help noticing that my copy included British spellings and had been printed in London. The physical book felt like a reflection of me in a way, combining elements from both sides of the Atlantic, and was one of three I brought with me when I moved back to London last year for graduate school.
I fell in love with Fredericksburg, too, at some point in my adulthood. Maybe it was spending time with my sisters over the December holidays last year. Or reconnecting with my childhood best friend. Or reading by the river at Old Mill Park in the summertime. Maybe it was the pictures of the trees in our backyard turning colors, or images of them covered in snow that my mom texted me while I was away.
Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age film Lady Bird came out when I was 15. Lady Bird is a senior at a Catholic high school––made somewhat unique by her family’s atheism and economic status––who wants to move to the East Coast to write. She’s angsty, lost, yet determined, and very relatable for a lot of teenage girls:
Striving for popularity.
Not getting along with her mother.
In love with Timothée Chalamet.
There’s a scene in which she meets with a teacher to discuss her college essay”
Sister Sarah Joan: “You clearly love Sacramento.”
Lady Bird: “I do?”
Sister Sarah Joan: “You write about Sacramento so affectionately and with such attention.”
Lady Bird: “Well, I was just describing it.”
Sister Sarah Joan: “Well, it comes across as love.”
Lady Bird: “Sure, I guess I pay attention.”
Sister Sarah Joan: “Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing, love and attention?”
I think about that line of dialogue sometimes: “Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing, love and attention?” It’s not that I made an active effort to hate my home town when I was younger. I didn’t. I just felt like Lady Bird––different, confused, and eager to experience more.
I’ve always paid attention to Fredericksburg. The heaps of bright orange leaves on College Avenue mid-autumn. What spot to jump from at the little waterfall behind College Heights Pool. The most popular orders at Carl’s, where I worked my first non-babysitting job in high school. The geese that cross the road a few yards before the left turn into Target off Route 3.
Love and attention. I’m not quite sure when the two bled into each other. I recently had a conversation with another friend here in London. She told me that she was surprised I left Fredericksburg considering how close I am with my family, and how fondly I speak of my hometown. I told her about my eagerness to experience more, like Lady Bird, and how I had also fallen in love with London.
London is built up of little details, too. The mist that settles above the pond in front of my local library. Swans resting silently on the water. When it becomes cold enough to turn the heat lamps on in pub gardens. The foxes that roam around in the night, offering comfort and awe in the dark. Which shops carry gluten-free meal deals.
Of course, you can be in love with two places at the same time. People do it all the time. But you’ll always know which came first.
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Claire Marshall Watkins is an alumna of the University of Mary Washington and has just completed a master’s in journalism at Goldsmiths, University of London. You can read more of her writing on her Substack, Virginia Magnolia.
This is so beautiful, Claire. I (and Fredericksburg) miss you terribly.