Writers Can Go Home Again

Writers are often battered with quotes from well-meaning teachers trying to protect their sensitive egos. "A prophet (or writer) in their own home will never be understood." That one may have more than a grain of truth to it. Another one (and this one-liner is widely dispersed among young adults everywhere) is "You can't go home again." This is simply not the case. You can always go home again, but you must be prepared for the fact that you won't be the same person who left. Your perceptions and how you experience what is now your past have changed. If you are a creative, it's even more likely that you have changed faster than the place you called, or call, home.

I encourage writers to go home again if for no other reason than to quicken the pulse of memory. During my retreat time in Asheville, my home for over 13 years, I drove my little Corolla down to Burnsville and out along the South Toe River where I used to live. Spring in those old Black Mountains is breathtaking. The familiar curvy two-lanes, the swinging bridge, and the Toe River brought back so many memories of being newly in love, buying our first house together, planting the first small garden in rich river valley soil. I could still feel the ice cold currents of the river at my waist where I caught rainbows, browns and brookies on a fly rod.

I drove up Merry Bear Lane, a small drive Leigh and I named, to get a glimpse of our old home. I ignored the "No Trespassing" sign because I just had to have a look. Do not try this at home. Depending on where you lived, you could be badly bitten, or worse, shot. But I knew the same neighbors lived there and would recognize me, so I crept up just enough to see the house. There it was, the cabin we had turned into a cottage, the chicken house we built together. All the trees we'd planted were so much larger now than I remembered. The Pisgah National Forest rose behind the little house to a peak I once would climb to get a view of hazy blue mountains. When one of my old neighbors walked out of what had once been our home, I felt my heart wrench in my chest. Yes, they had bought it some time ago.

I won't say that it's not painful to go home again. It can be. We must foster the attitude that we have moved on. I know, for instance, that what I once had is not worth trading for what I now have. One is no better than the other--it is, after all, one creative life and that life in its entirety belongs to us alone. Don't compartmentalize your experience of it. Every place we've called home has played its part in making us who we are today. As Janis Joplin once said, "It's all the same f---ing day, man." It's all one life. Make of it what you will.

I finished my day with a long drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you've never made this drive, with someone or alone, you must put it on your bucket list. Drive it on a weekday, before school lets out for summer. Drive slowly, stop often, snap some pictures. Write a haiku or two at the pull-offs as you look over that wondrous beauty. There is nowhere like it in the world. That can be said of every place, I reckon. The Blue Ridge is just one of many. However, if you crave the colors blue and green and giants that somehow remind you of the great breasts of the Mother who feeds us all, you don't want to miss the ride. It's a treat, a retreat, you will never forget.

I know some people who never look back. For me, there is a bittersweet beauty in seeing it all again. Revisiting and remembering allows me to savor who I've been and all that I have loved before. Besides, I'm not done writing about it yet. The pages of my life may have turned but my memoir remains unfinished. Until then, I need these real time reminders. They show me how I came to be where I am and remind me once again that wherever my heart is, there is home.