You Can’t Go Home Again
I was thinking about the title to this book that I just finished by Thomas Wolfe and how I like the title a lot and how it almost reminds me of a few things in my life recently. I came home to New Orleans to reunite with old friends, family and my beloved city and instead I found the mutual attraction that had brought me close to those old friends had long since passed, my family was busy living busy lives that did not include me, and my city flooded beyond the pale and now a shadow of its former self (but we have hope!).
You can’t go home again – not the place you lived before, not with the people you were with, not the same person you had been.
But you can find home again. I did here in New Orleans. Everyone told me when I pined to come back here that I was out of my mind for leaving beautiful, stunning San Francisco for the likes of this two-bit town. They said I told you so when the city was drowning. But you know what, I have never had a home like this one. No where in the world do I feel so right and it’s the little things, like standing in line at Ace Hardware and seeing Chick O Sticks in a container.
Family – we’ll find our way to some other world. The ones who were close are not, but now I’ve grown closer to the ones who weren’t in an odd twist. And my mother, of course, is front and center here and she was the main reason I returned.
And friends – lord, I’m blessed with the best friends I could have ever asked for – and to think that I’ve known these friends since only 2006 – and I feel that they are more “there” for me than any friendships I’ve ever enjoyed in the past. Friends for life.
So I didn’t want that old home anyway – I want this home – the one where Tatjana and I rock on the front porch and watch the pelicans return in November, and watch our love grow, and simply be, in the most eel possible way.