You can never go home.
Vacation lands me in the Midwest town of my birth, the place I grew up. While not a tiny town, certainly the kind of place where everyone had shaken the hand of the mayor at least a couple of times.
Back in high school, on the cross country team, we would run around the lake at the center of town. I hated it. I always hated the run. Always hated that my team mates ran it faster than me. Always hated that it devastated me physically every single time.
Woke up today and drove to the old high school. The old high school, a place where my dad had gone to elementary school, now provides overflow parking for the hospital and some horseshoe pits.
Started my run where my high school once sat. Ran with ease and enjoyment, realizing that my old torture course had many bucolic charms.
On the backside of the lake my old course passed by the cemetery where many of my family lie. Took pictures of their gravestones. A bit of a year in my eye as I looked down at the final resting place of the Art from which my middle name comes. Rest well, grandpa.
A short while later I find myself contemplating how the town I grew up in only exists with me, now. Those memories don’t describe what was here but how I experienced it. I glance over at the lake and see a marker for a dock space. It is engraved with a number; 42. The voice in my head says, “Keep moving. You are among the living. You are full of life.”
And so I run. Not from. Not to. But because.
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