Homecoming
Last night: Lobster, many pints of Michelob Ultra (tastes just like water!), and watching Antoine beat all comers at pool, including my brother, his girlfriend, and some roughneck gangsta who really wanted to put some money on a match (Antoine declined). Seeing people I haven’t thought about in years. Falling asleep at 11, while Antoine and my brother stayed up till 3 AM playing Jeopardy! on Playstation.
Today: Amish bakery (with a curiously comprehensive stock of Indian herbs and spices), Super K-Mart, downtown greasy spoon diner, the library I spent thousands of hours in as a kid, a drive to the spot where my high school used to be, a cruise past the house I couldn’t wait to escape as a teenager, and a country greasy spoon diner. A stack of library books is waiting.
There’s something about just being back in Ohio that is so good. I cannot put my finger on what it is, but the simplest things - a regional weathercast, the Sunday coupons, all of the doggone plenty of this place - make me feel that everything is okay. It’s all so okay, so fine, that after enough time here, I start to wonder if I ever had another life in another place. Even Antoine fits in so well here that his accent has stopped sounding different to me, compared to everyone else’s. The half-French boy from Hampstead is not at all out of place in the redneck bars and country churches.
Still, London is there, waiting for us. That will be a homecoming too, and for some reason, I am looking forward to it just as much as I am dreading leaving this place.
Filed under: Life