Once upon a time, I changed lifestyles and home addresses with the alacrity of an escape artist. I'm gonna hit the trail again soon, and pay a call on that person I used to be.
Well, really, I'm gonna fill up the car and pack some bags and hit the interstate in a couple of days, The Blondster in tow (well, really, in the passenger seat) and it's gonna be an interesting ride, heading west to a place that isn't really West; since we live on the East Coast, but still, it's a ten hour drive to the 'left' on the map, so there you go.
We're driving to Kentucky for an extra-long holiday weekend and we haven't been there in a while. Wouldn't have a reason to go back at all, except my cousin/close friend and her husband and daughters (who are roughly the same ages as Robin Jr and The Blondster) live there, and it will be wonderful to see them.
One morning while we're there and JB is off golfing, I'm driving up to the city I'm from and taking myself on a tour of places that figure, fictionally speaking, in my novels, and taking pictures. I have a list, so I won't forget where I'm going and why, because I don't know when I'll be back there again. I'll be visiting places in the old parts of town, and looking at houses I haven't seen in so long, it seems to me they can't be altogether real, because memories play tricks, and because I'm not the same person who visited them or lived in them or mourned for the person who lives in them no longer. There are a few places I won't be able to find again; I'm pretty sure about that - places out in the county that I barely knew how to find when I drove to them the first time, because they were off my radar, and really, stayed that way, even when I checked out of other things I was doing and stayed here and there a while.
I expect to come away somewhat surprised, and a little sad, not that the days when I was there (or in the various 'theres', really) are over, but that the days when my life seemed like it would spin on and on world without end, and any given day I'd have another lifetime to switch up and simply go on, are over. Personal infinity is no longer a pretext for my actions; and the way I choose to see this development, it frees me up to stop wasting time and make damn sure I do what I need to do.
Have you all done this? Visited past 'scenes of the crime'?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Suspension of belief is gonna have to wait, while I go living in the past.
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Every so often I would return to the scenes of my youth, as though refueling my nostalgia. Went back there just a couple of months ago. Everything has changed so drastically it no longer reminds me of my youth. Looks like somebody else's life now.
I guess it is, isn't it?
My current WIP is set in one of my 'hometown's. I went back there once about 1991. Stood outside my old house and mourned its monochrome existence. At least my folks had an artistic appreciation for contrasting colors.
Anyway, the current occupants didn't seem pleased with my staring at their abode. Ah well.
I should visit soon as research for my WIP, but Google maps have given me a peek at what some of it looks like today. There's a certain footbridge that I'd love to know if it's still there and being used. Can't see it from Google. I vaguely remember it being closed - maybe.
The tunnel under the train tracks is still there. My Jr. High school is now a combined elementary and middle school. I'd already known my elementary school was razed.
Perspectives change a lot over time. A lot more than the actual place changes.
Have you all done this? Visited past 'scenes of the crime'?
Not till the statute of limitations runs out.
Sure have. In fact, I wrote a personal essay about this place that was accepted for publication by a little literary journal that, um, has yet to make it to the third issue. But if that third issue ever comes out, I'm there!
Things have totally changed in the town I grew up in. Totally.
There's a fine line between oh look — it hasn't changed a bit and bulldozed.
Hope you have fun...
Hi Bevie and Sarah,
I lived back in my hometown for a few years, back in the mid 1990's, and I had so completely wiped out 'past lives' from my consciousness that I didn't go back and see anything - moved to part of town I'd never lived in before, and, yeah, continued with the program of unconciously pretending what I was doing right then was who I was.
But it's like you said, Sarah..
A lot more than the actual place changes. I knew that in an intellectual way but I didn't really know that until recently, when I've thought about lives in a pattern kind of way, and found some for myself.
Hey BT, Know what you mean. But, see, I'm older than you are, so mine have long since run out. So....
Hey Pete,
That was a great idea! I've been told I should/could do the essay idea, and I'd been wondering where to send them, and for some reason, I hadn't thought of lit mags. Go figure. (I'll read when I get back.)
Well, Whirl,
I did some Googling around yesterday and found out a quarry/lake way out in the boondocks in the 1970's, the scene of more than one of my 'crimes', is now reduced to the size of a a 'pond' in a new neighborhood, with a wildlife preserve running beside the neighborhood. Makes me wonder how I'll feel when I drive to see it, since that quarry plays a key role in my novel. Hmmmmm.
When my Dad died (back in 1993 or thereabouts) I went back and had a look at where I'd grown up. The area looked much hillier than I'd remembered but I still connected with the little girl who walked up onto the Downs to get away from people.
I'd hate to live anywhere now that's as small as the flat where I grew up. It was claustrophobic.
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