Home Again, Home Again- jiggity jig.

“But why had he always felt so strongly the magnetic pull of home, why had he thought so much about it and remembered it with such blazing accuracy, if it did not matter, and if this little town, and the immortal hills around it, was not the only home he had on earth? He did not know. All that he knew was that the years flow by like water, and that one day men come home again.” Thomas Wolfe from "You Can't Go Home Again"


It's funny how you can have these people in your life. Ones that you have known since you weren't even able to tie your shoes. People that hold your history in their hearts and you theirs. People that grew up with you. I grew up in a town with a population of ~800 people, 850 if you count livestock in town limits. We had train tracks and open prairie in our backyard. The kind of place where the elderly sit outside in their lawn chairs and offer you candy as you walk by and nobody blinks an eye. The kind of place where a mom can throw the kids outside, lock the door and drink red wine and watch soaps clean her house uninterrupted knowing her kids are safe. The kind of place where tadpole hunting and riding your bike on gravel roads is a daily experience in the summer. The kind of place where you form friendships where you might only see people a few times every couple of years as you grow old, but when you do- you ease right back into that comfortable place where you can talk about anything, laugh uncontrollably, all put your arms around one another and sing as loud as you can to music from your youth... A community.

Since my parents moved away it hasn't been easy for me to get home much. But when I do, it is home. Every inch of that town holds a memory for me and I feel so lucky and so blessed to have grown up in my town. I went into my parent's old store and chatted with the new owners. It was like nothing had changed. I could still see my Dad standing there behind the counter. I'm adult enough to say I cried. In the store. It was a lot for me- but it was worth it.

I spent sometime outside on Saturday night staring up at the stars- because I forgot what it was like to see them so clearly you can almost feel them.  I laid in bed in the trailer one night and could hear the sandhill cranes flying high up ahead migrating south. I ran out of town from the campground to the old airport and back (4km wahoo) on a gravel road that smelled like clover and I could hear cows mooing and see the cowbirds flying around.

I feel upset sometimes that my son won't have the same experiences I had. He won't understand directions like "turn left when you get to the red barn, and right at so and so's house". He won't grow up in school with all the same people, know all their families, and have the same bond I do with these incredible people. He won't learn how to drive on a gravel road- the smells, the crunchy noise, and the feel of the rocks under the wheels. He won't have that feeling of knowing them since he was 5 and then seeing their 5 year old children- and be able to pick whose is whose out of a crowd... He won't have these people. These incredible, special, down to earth, smart, amazing people- That I don't see enough of and was so blessed to grow up with.

In other news: my eating was crap, I ate way too much cheese, and whiskey, beers, and baileys blew my diet right out of the water... I remember rationalizing the cookie I was eating as I drank my 27865th beer that I would eventually just throw it up anyway.. ha. Didn't happen. I did run 4km and golf, so that should count.... but I wasn't this weekend. I was just too busy.