Source: Pixabay
In a scene from the movie Forrest Gump, there’s a famous line Forrest says after he stops running:
“I’m pretty tired, I think I’ll go home now.”
Forrest had been running for three years to purge his feelings for Jenny, who never really loved him the way he did her. For Forrest, that run brought him full circle back to his life in Alabama and to raise the son she left behind. In an older post titled A Sense of Place, I mentioned a lively book written about learning to love where you live. At the time, I was new to yet another place and discovering the book seemed more than a bit serendipitous. I was still convinced at the time that if I learned to love the place I was in, it would love me back.
As of late, I’m not so sure anymore.
Outside of this blog, I’ve written barely anything over the past eighteen months. Tweaked a flash fiction and wrote a few poems but not much else. The well, it seems, has run dry. Or maybe I just don’t want to write anymore. I’m not sure but I seem to be a having a mid-writer’s crisis or something. Any of you take an extended period of time away from your writing? Is this normal?
Which leads me back to the quote at the top. I’m leaving this weekend to fly out of state for a memorial service. Someone near and dear to me passed away after two years of serious health issues (not Covid related). I was planning a trip back home anyway, I’ve been feeling it’s time to go. I haven’t been home since my mother died in ’04. His death prompted my decision to go.
That said, I can’t help but think about the possibility of going home again – maybe for good. Maybe all that running/moving around the country I’ve posted about was a lot like Forrest Gump’s three-year run: to purge some emotions, to run away from some problems and to heal with time.
Planning the trip, everything fell into place, as if it was meant to be. So I ask myself: can I truly go home again? Or is this another ‘geographic cure’? Or have I come full circle and it’s time to go home? I hope I’ll have some answers on my trip or when I get back. Will I miss CA? Not sure. Wildfires have been fairly nasty and the smoke is making it hard to get on with daily activities. I actually miss the rain back home, a good soaking. Maybe getting back to a place, a culture if you will, that’s familiar, will become my muse and the writing floodgates will open once again. Maybe I needed to have all those adventures before settling down into a more quiet life. Maybe. Lots of maybes hanging in the air right now.
Melody Warnick wrote in her book, This Is Where You Belong, “The Melody I was in Virginia would not, fingers crossed, turn out to be the Melody I was in Texas.” I’m becoming more comfortable with the idea that I have come full circle within and the person I was when all this running/moving started is not the person I am now. Growth. Maturity. Healing. Writing. They all do wonders for the spirit. Wisdom gained only by the experience of having lived it.
Can we truly go home again? Come full circle? I’m beginning to believe it is possible.
“Home’s where you go when you run out of homes.”- John Le Carré
Mestengo Books 