After five fruitful days at Hemingway-Pfeiffer, I crashed at home-home (Cottonwood Corner), as opposed to home (Fayetteville) and wrote and wrote and wrote, slept in my “own” bed, walked around the farm, and wrote some more. And I took lots of farm pics from my farm weekend.
Do you know what I mean by home-home? For me, it’s the specific place I grew up. Not everyone has the strong pull of place, as some folks moved all over the world, military families and whatnot. But the roots of my family grow in Mississippi County, Arkansas, the place, the house, the soil. That part of Arkansas always tugs me back. There’s a light for me at home, a truth, a consistency I need.
I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe. Maya Angelou said that, and I agree.
I carry home with me like baggage—the good, the heavy, more than I sometimes need— and return to recharge, repack, remember.
