Homecoming

I gaze out the window of the plane as it was parked into the docking gate.

I see the same city I’d always seen as a child, the same skyscrapers stretching towards the heavens, the same mountain ranges surrounding the territory painting an almost Van Gogh like beauty to the city.

I feel a hint of a smile cross my lips as I listen upon the awed whispers of my fellow passengers looking upon the city’s unmistakable beauty. Despite my mixed emotions to this place, I’d be lying if I said that its outward appearance was unappealing to the eye. The reactions of the other passengers let me know that for most of them this was their first time here. I allow myself to chuckle, ‘tourists’ I think to myself knowingly. What was new to them was at one point an everyday occurrence for me.

However, as I thought about I realized perhaps I was being too harsh. After all,I haven’t seen hide nor hair of this city since I was a child many years ago.

Did I still claim the right to pass discernment? I haven’t lived here in quite a long while, was I now a tourist as well? Was there some metaphysical statue of limitation on being a native to a certain place?

Is so than for argument's sake, I was now a tourist as well. But I digress.

A tap on my shoulder directs my attention to the passenger that had sat next to me for the duration of the flight.

An elderly man with a kind smile and a bearded face. “Beautiful isn’t it?”

I smile back and nod in agreement yes this place was beautiful no one could deny that, beautiful like a sunset on the beach, you may see it a thousand times in a lifetime, but its wonder and beauty will never cease to take your breath away.

“Yes, it's quite the spectacle,” I said. “This city leaves an impression on you whether you’re here for a year or just one hour”.

The man chuckles at my words. “That’s rather insightful young man, you almost sound like you’ve been here before”

‘If only you knew’ I thought to myself.

…………………………………….

A few hours from that short but meaningful conversation found me driving in a rental car down the streets that paved the way from my transition from childhood into adulthood. I was literally going down memory lane.

I look upon the city that had once been my home an odd sensation was within me as I barely recognized my former home. It felt nostalgic but also alien, I fondly recognized some immortalized landmarks that would never fade away. But I also recognized that the city had metamorphosized in my absence.

I internally scolded myself for having to GPS to navigate the city. I’ve always prided myself on my innate sense of direction, I’d hardly ever gotten lost or didn’t know where to go.

Yet here I was relying on modern technology to direct me in the city I’d grown up in, a city which at one point I could have navigated through blindfolded at night and still never get lost.

Had the city changed that much?

Or had I just been gone that long?

These were questions I just didn’t have an answer to. Either way, I digress, I was nearing the first stop on my journey through history, The park, Desert Breeze Park. One thing I knew would always be here in my former city.

As I traveled down the street I see the city park I frequented in my youth and feel a smile tug at my soul.

Some of my best memories happened here in this park. Playing basketball with my friends, watching in awe as the hardcore skateboarders defied gravity, shyly asking my childhood crush if she wanted to go steady with me.

The fire hydrant parties we had on the hot days of summer, the concerts we attended, the schoolyard fights I’d gotten into, the petty mischief we caused.

But there was one part of the park that was my favorite: the tree, a massive tree likely older than the city itself, a gave that gave the perfect shade no matter what time of the day.

It was under this tree that my friends often lounged, lying on towels and blankets, listening to the radio, drinking soda, eating snacks, laughing and smoking stolen cigarettes.

It was under this tree my friends and I would have deep soul-bearing conversations about love, sex, the idea of marriage, social injustice and life itself, the entire park held a place in my heart, but this tree? This tree was special. I park the car and walk over the landscape towards the tree, there was something I had to see.

I approach the massive trunk and smile fondly as I see it was still here, The carvings of our initials my friends and I placed here to immortalize our names along with this tree.

I fondly run my hand along the surface of the tree bark. Silently I prayed for this tree to remain here forevermore long after I am gone so that my name will be immortalized along with it even if just for a moment.

A final smile stretches across my face as I turn and walk away, readying myself for the next landmark on my journey.

I drive through the city and come upon my next stop: my old high school.

I smile and allow myself to chortle. High school it’s amazing how those 4 years can define a person’s future, those last four years of true childhood before the slow process of becoming an adult began.

I park on the other side of the street and lean against the car fondly gazing upon my school, I remember causing all manner of mischief finding humor and satisfaction in bending the rules as far as possible, annoying my teachers, and just being rebellious. Believing myself to be invincible and thinking I was the smartest man in existence, I remember my friends and I strutting around the school like peacocks, thinking we were kings, the perks of being a teenager.

If only we knew that someday reality would slap us hard the back of the head to show us how small and insignificant we were.

But there was more to memory than ego-filled teenage boy minds, I remember sitting in the stadiums watch the football players slam into each other like modern-day gladiators as 7we watched from the stands, high school football the closest we’d get to the real-life coliseum.

Though the building remained the name of my school had changed. But I would always remember it as it was Spring Valley High School.

I gaze upon my High School and give a nod to the spirit of the territory and enter my rental car and prepare myself for the next stop on my journey.

The only one I was dreading. My own house.

……………………………………..

I couldn’t even park in front of it. The closest I allowed myself to get was 7 houses down at the end of the block, but I could see it just fine. And believe me that was close enough.

They say home is where the heart is at, that house was not a home, it was a cage, a prison, I place where the memories I had were pain, misery, loneliness and despair.

The house where I had known nothing but torment, humiliation, and sorrow. I remember doing everything I could to avoid going back to that house. Staying after school long after last class, hanging out with my friends till midnight, having as many sleepovers as possible. I had done everything I could in my youth to avoid stepping into that house. But no matter how I delayed it entry into that hellhole was inevitable.

Even now as an adult I didn’t dare get closer than where I was standing.

One dream I had was to purchase that house and then have it torn down. I wanted that house erased from the face of the earth and for it to fade into a void of nothingness.

Obviously, I didn’t stay long there were no fond memories to be had here, only the relief of knowing what I had escaped. I get back into the car and drive away as fast as possible ready to experience the joy of my final destination. I had saved the best for last.

I park the car in the large parking lot for my favorite place in the world as a child in this city. This place had been my temple, my sanctuary, my safe haven, a place of peace.

The public library. Not to a most exciting place to some or even most, but to me it was El Dorado. I was in this building I could isolate myself and be at peace, I could feel safe and secure. I could feel like myself and be myself surrounded by so many books, I have unlimited adventures and untold riches. I could leave reality and journey to another world as many worlds as I wanted to, I could leave behind a painful reality and enter a place where my imagination knew no limits.

This simple building was more a home than my own house. It was this building that inspired me to begin writing my own stories, creating my own adventures, shaping my own world’s and hopefully offering solace to another child as predecessors used theirs to make find solace in my childhood.

I smile fondly as I look upon my favorite place in childhood, I’d come far in my life and I had so much further to go, a chance to form a new home for myself and my future children. So they may grow up and thinking fondly of their childhood with nothing but nostalgia and happiness. So they experience their own homecoming within their own homes.

But that would come in time, for now, I had to find a new place to call my own, a new city that would smile at my arrival and say “Welcome Home”