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I don’t go back to my hometown much. Three times in 10 years, maybe, for Christmas or a burial. Returning to a small town in middle America is an odd experience once you’ve left it behind. There’s a sensation of boarding a derelict ship, adrift on a foreign sea of soybean fields.
I struggle not to mourn over the body of what the place used to be—and for the friends whose lives are tied to it by circumstance. There’s a temptation to pity them—a sentiment I largely try to avoid. For them, it is home. Whether they wanted to leave or not, there they are.
The scale of a small town throws change into harsh relief. That empty storefront was a coffee shop. That new parking lot was the bakery where we got donuts before church. They razed the old high school—my high school. A grassy, gaping hole on East Main St. took its place.
Last time I was home, I went to Pizza Hut—site of many a personal pan lunch in my youth thanks to “Book It!” rewarding reading with junk.
Pizza Hut sits beside the Health Department. From the window I watched the scrolling red marquee pleading in silence: “Free Narcan kits.”
Pizza Hut sits beside the Health Department. From the window I watched the scrolling red marquee pleading in silence: “Free Narcan kits.”
The best 3-point shooter I’d ever seen died of a heroin overdose. I thought about him, and how he introduced me to Filter in 8th grade.
The pizza was good. The dessert pizza, too.
I have simple tastes. I come by them honestly.
The pizza was good. The dessert pizza, too.
I have simple tastes. I come by them honestly.
I’m glad to be gone, because there wasn’t much for me there—and because the world is too big & too beautiful to remain unseen.
But I miss it at Christmas. I miss the Christmas of my boyhood, part and parcel of an idyllic youth that exists more in idealised memory than reality.
But I miss it at Christmas. I miss the Christmas of my boyhood, part and parcel of an idyllic youth that exists more in idealised memory than reality.
Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Wherever you are now is likely where you’ll find yourself on Christmas Day. I hope that place is a happy one for you. If it’s not where you hoped to be, that’s okay. Another Christmas will come soon enough.
Besides, you can never really go home again.
Besides, you can never really go home again.
Merry Christmas, wherever it finds you.
