On certain days, (not every day, for certain, but on ‘certain’ days,)

                   I find myself missing the Midwest.

Even the humidity would be a welcome visitor to my life, on some mornings, I think.

                    Not sure about the nostalgic sadness and longing I feel, really.

Perhaps its just a fleeting wish for … home.

Home, where my roots are, I mean.

            Home, where my folks are buried, and my brothers live,

                    And the Cardinals play every summer,

                              And the colors change each Fall.

What is it about home, I wonder? 

What is it about that place?

                 Sometimes, it causes my mind to wander off into yesterday’s memories,

As if I were trying to locate some path I used to walk,

               Or find some ‘community’ that used to be?

I know. No use reminding me. I know.

I can’t get ‘home.’

            Even if I drove to the place of my birth.

            Even if I flew to that very place I was born,

                         where my brothers still live,

                                          and the Cardinals still play.

            Even if I walked along Myrtle Avenue where I grew up, I wouldn’t really be home.

 

It moved. Home moved.

(I visited my hometown several months ago,

              And even though that street sign clearly read, “Myrtle Avenue,” I could tell.

                    The ‘real’ Myrtle Avenue — the one indelibly etched in my mind —wasn’t there.

                           Someone must have moved the real Myrtle Avenue, and left some imposter street in its                                   place.)

No. Home isn’t ‘home,’ now.

          The people are gone; the trees I remember are gone.

           The feelings I used to have, just walking down the street.

                        The atmosphere. 

                                  The very smell of the neighborhood.

                                       The things I thought I would never forget. 

I’ve forgotten most of them, I guess.

 

So much about home that I can’t recall.

In fact, maybe that’s what I’m longing for?

               A visit I to a place I can’t get to from here.

A nostalgic walk down a lane called “memory.”

And maybe that’s why I’m a bit sad.

That place I’d love to visit for awhile this morning, 

                   Is a place that is no more.

No wonder I can’t remember it.

           Gone, sadly, forever.

           Gone, that place called … home.

0 thoughts on “A Word About … Home

  1. Aww, Ken. Everything changes, doesn’t it? We change, don’t we? I don’t know that Myrtle Avenue would recognize you either, right? The little boy all grown up now with grandkids of his own. But I get it. "Home" means so much more to me now… more than my roots, more than my hometown, more than my old friends. It’s just… different.

  2. Ken. I love your writings.
    We all long for home at times and as some say the good old days but since we are all foreigners in this world heaven is probably the home we seek. Once mom and dad are gone everything changes for all of us..smile
    Keep writing we live it.

  3. Loved this, Ken. I loved the way you used the details of your own childhood to evoke in us that deep longing for simplicity, belonging and routine that many of us experienced in our own childhoods, however imperfectly. I share your longing for ‘a visit to a place I can’t get to from here’.

  4. Always have loved your writing, I still have your books from 30 years ago 😉

  5. Home to me was my mother’s wonderful smell. I could smell her when she would be away on visits and when I would come home from school. I was tall enough to reach her apron and I would bury my head in her apron. I was at home with that smell, but sadly I can’t smell it anymore…

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