From One Home to Another

I'm back in the NYC and it feels good. I spent the last four days back in Clarksville, TN visiting my dearest friend and it was great! I ate too much, moved too little, and came back much heftier, but it was good. My adventures did not cease simply because my location was less exotic. I mastered the homemade pasta, embarked on a BBQ quest, co-hosted a dinner party, wrote some new pieces and met some great new friends. Except for the workouts, I actually managed to complete most of my goals this week. It seems that my goals may be becoming part of my life rather than a temporary stretch.

I have struggled to let go of my home in the Fort Campbell area. After much navel gazing, I realized that it is a period of my life I cannot part with more than the place itself. Much of my sentiment is rose-colored by the passing of time, but this trip I was able to pinpoint the real source of my longing.

There is truly nothing to do in Clarksville. Even after extensive research, I came-up empty. What Clarksville has that New York does not is community. The diverse population of people from around the country, thrown together into one big messy army family, are a community like none I have met before or since. The simple pleasure of having these down to earth, interesting women over for dinner or out to drinks (albeit at the ever stylish neighborhood Chili's!) is an experience satisfying in a deep, pure way. There were no pretenses, no need to be anything but what you are. Laughter and conversation and dreams flowed freely. The freedom to be yourself and enjoy others who are simply themselves and who share some kind of common history is fulfilling. This is the element of life I crave.

I, of course, immediately thought of how to own this feeling again, how to find a way back into its comforting arms. DeShon could join the military, perhaps I could come back. It is a temporary fix, this is a fleeting dream. The military is transient, and whether you are done after 2 years or 20, when it is done with you, it spits you out and sends you back to the cold, alien world from whence you came. Even if I found a way back "home", the people would slip away, and eventually I would be right back out in the cold. No, that time has passed and now I am faced with the much greater feat of finding that warm embrace on the outside, in a place where people are not bound by blood and sweat and mutual misery.

So, I returned home to New York, and she embraced me in her formal way. The streets are friendly and familiar, people standing near me engaged me in conversations about their lives as though I was a dear friend, the men at my bodega greeted me like a long lost relative, and my tiny apartment beamed like a palace. Perhaps it is not this place that keeps me at arms length, but my own insecurity. Perhaps I need only be confident enough to be myself here and the warmth of that simple acceptance will appear. Its true what they say, you can't go back, but maybe, just maybe I can use familiar roads to lead me home again, wherever that may be.