Now He's Miles Away and Casting Stones

Today's the Time for Courage, Babe

Watching Me Fall

Fault Line

I been lying in the bright light
See my shadow from below
Never wanted from another man
Never wanted for my own

Drowning in the rising tide
At my father's door

Through a window to the last mile
My living picture on a wall
From the banks of the far side
I see the lights come ashore

Racing from the rising tide
To my father's door
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Down Down Under the Earth

In the process of remodeling my website, I sorted through some archives. I've been thinking of Athens lately, maybe feeling too fixed in the life I have here in Chicago, which in turn makes me feel a little old and a little sad. I've been graduated for three years this week, which is totally mind-blowing in the way that it feels like so much longer.

My grandma is moving out of her house this weekend -- the house where she lived for 45 years. My dad grew up there, and because my parents were either both working or just generally unavailable and ill-equipped most of the time, I grew up there, too. And without me even getting to say goodbye in person, it's all gone, and not on happy terms. Growing up for me has meant gradually witnessing all the fixtures of my childhood slipping away into the deep and dark distance where I can't get to them. The bank foreclosed on my childhood home right after I graduated high school, and for four years of college I returned to my hometown and slept in a big, cold house that never needed to be home. Right after college my parents were forced to move again. I haven't been back to my hometown many times since. There's no place for my things -- no bedroom and no bed for a bedroom, even. Just random and lost relics of my youth, shoved in crates and boxes and stacked on the front porch.

It seems like we're always trying to go back to the places we've been. It's important to feel like the places are still intact, patiently waiting for us when we're ready to confront them. Maybe we're looking for comfort or resolution. Maybe we always feel estranged from the love we had and the time we let waste away feeling like we had all the time we needed. Or maybe we're always running away to start over and stake our claim on a life that never feels any different.