Walking with Political Memory

While visiting my old hometown, a morning walk at sunrise brings back what made me leave, and to contend with what it means to return.

I took a walk shortly after sunrise this morning in the town where I spent much of my childhood. Visiting my parents and siblings means stepping into a portal to travel back in time. My car heads north on 71, and takes me through places that have industrially developed, but still smells like swaths of farmland where one tick of a clock takes more than an hour; a midwest phenomenon, conspiring against the power of time and space.

This is a place when I used to take long walks with my dreams, dreaming of leaving, forever. Dreaming of finding lovers, many. Dreaming of travel, the ocean always. Dear Younger LFB, you loved yourself enough to dream but you had so much learning to learn about what it means to actually “leave” anything or anywhere. Place is just an output, a three dimensional metaphor projected to mirror something else inside. There’s no escaping Ohio. Ohio is everywhere.

If thrice absconding Ohio taught me anything, it is that returns can be far more transformative than leaving.

A blonde conversation sounded twenty steps behind me. I considered running to avoid the neoconservative news recaps and diatribes, but wondered how long that would last before confronting another red cloud and being enveloped in their mist. They greeted and then paced me. Another duo, in opposite direction, passed with oh my America fragrances. A gray Reagan-Bush ‘84 t-shirt sauntered by. Why was everyone and everything talking so loudly? I kept walking and focused on my breath.

The path curled toward a larch colored gazebo, overlooking a small reservoir with a rocky knoll. Two birds flew out from under it. I stepped onto the wooden canopy and stood still in the middle. There it was: not knowing if I wanted to stay or leave. It was so familiar. I looked up. In an overhang inside of the gazebo, a thick bird’s nest sat above the fray. A carefully constructed home for the winged creatures to rest before they take flight.

I once prayed through dreaming, and those prayers took me away only to bring me back to walk with the person(s) I used to be, to contend with and consider what has been built while I was gone. To note what has not changed, and illuminate what has.