I used to write book review for a variety of publications. It appealed to some academic need I had to analyze the words I read. All of my reviews lurk around the internet, some on Amazon and others on the publications’ sites I was writing for. Many years ago I wrote a review of Kirsty Gunn’s 2000 novel This Place Your Return to is Home. I liked the book. (I gave it 5 stars when I posted the review on Amazon.) Over the years, what has stuck with me is not the story, whose plot I have long forgotten, but the title. It’s a complete, beautifully phrased thought.
This morning in the shower, while letting the water run over me and stalling getting out to get ready for work, I was reflecting on this weekend, spent in Athens. I think about my college town a lot and why it is that I like it so much. The reality is that my time spent in college was not all pleasant. I had hard times and difficulties like everyone else must have. And yet, when I return to Athens, when I get to the end of the exit ramp and see the Ohio University sign in front of the football stadium, I feel immediately at peace.
I wonder what they return will be like after my brother is no longer there – when all that ties me to Athens are memories. But for now I go into town and begin a ritual of places to visit, eat, shop and drink. I walk through the town like you might through your bedroom at night in the pitch black. I know it by feel.
In the past I have always reflected on going back to school as a sort of reliving that period of my life, minus the drah-ma. I thought that maybe I was missing some time in my life when the biggest concerns were that my friend and I were crushing on the same guy, when I could play euchre and spades for about 29 hours straight. When getting drunk before newspaper meetings was acceptable and where my days had the fun built in them with the same aspect of routine that brushing my teeth had.
This morning it hit me. I go back to OU frequently. Maybe I roll into town 2 – 3 times a year? Usually I am “visiting my siblings” or partaking in Mom’s weekend or Dad’s weekend, but really, I am heading to this place I have not let go of. My home, if you asked me, is the Big Blue House full of Wonder Boy and too many felines. But if I stop and think about it, the place I return to, over and over again, is home.
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