Trip Down Tennessean Memory Lane

I hadn't been back home since June so a visit was way past overdue. So Sam and I took the time off, packed up the dogs, and off we went. We drove in on a Thursday night and at some point I looked up and saw the stars. When you can't see them very well in the city, you just get used to it and forget they even exist. But when I gazed up at them I just realize how much I've missed seeing them. The same can be said in a way about my Tennessee friends. I only see them maybe once a year. Unlike the stars, I don't forget they exist but I forget how much I miss them. Life goes on, I go to work, come home, watch tv, sleep.. My life is on repeat of the same routine and I just get sucked into the monotony and forget. So this weekend was a vivid reminder of all that I'm missing out on living away.

I miss the landscape. I miss the familiarity of the sights as I drive past them. There is this small pond on Stewarts Ferry that is always so full of water it doesn't even have a bank. And every time I drive by, I have to gaze at it and mentally note the water level. Across from it, there's the house that my parents rented when they first got married. Before that, we drive past the house my grandmother lived in and where my uncles live now. We zoom past this rustic round hog barn that my dad used to go to sell his pigs. It's not just my memories I drive past, its the memories that have been passed down to me that are only tangible on these familiar roads and paths. The farther I physically get away, the wispier they become until they fade completely away. It doesn't help that I struggle with memory issues to begin with, so I fight to hold on to what I can. When I'm in Atlanta, it is so hard to conjure up the past - it's pretty much a losing battle. (I'll have to write a separate blog post about my memory issues.) But the second we cross the state line, I feel like the memories gain weight and by the time we enter Wilson County, the memories are fully formed.

I'm surrounded by the familiar and the known.

I'm reminded that I need to come home. That I need to plant my severed roots back into familiar dirt - the Georgia clay is not where they need to be.

I had no idea chopping wood could be this sexy. Look at his arms!

My bedroom was the top right window. Now it's my mom's craft room.