The Spot

As it turns out, you can go home again. When you get there, sometimes, it's a nail salon. Or something like that. Having a hometown and a family that abides there provides me with the opportunity to make visits to the planet of my birth. Since I left under pretty normal circumstances, no lingering suspicion or bodies wrapped in plastic, I can go back there whenever I would like. Well, truth is, I would like to go back more, but it costs money to move my backside from the left side of the country to the middle. So when I do get my act together and take it on the road, I show up with an eye toward nostalgia.
It was just about half my life ago that I trekked west, with an eye toward greener pastures. Not that the pastures in Colorado weren't green all on their own, but the myth or notion that I might find a place as lovely as the one I was leaving seemed like a good one to test. Happily, it turns out that living next to an ocean was not necessarily green but blue turns out to be pretty keen. Which means that when I make it back to the Rocky Mountains, there's a whole world green forests and pastures to see like they were brand new.
All those rocks and trees are pretty much as I left them, but it's the brick and mortar that gets smooshed around a lot. Buildings change and the people who used to fill them have moved on to other buildings. Maybe they went in search of greener pastures themselves. Maybe they just wandered off without a thought about where they might land. This is probably the reason for all the energy folks exert on that reunion jazz. I have been out of high school for thirty-eight years now, and I haven't been back for any of those events. I am grateful for the chance to have family reunions in a spot where I can see the mountains and hear the wind rushing through the pines. No name tags. No  pressure.
Except when it comes time to pick a place to eat. Or shop for records. Or any of the things I used to do when I was a resident of the Centennial State. Which works out, since I have people on the inside, getting me all the latest intel and keeping a spot clear for me. On those greener pastures.