We went to my hometown twice in one week. Climbed the ancient petroglyph rocks of my childhood, my own secret archaeology site that no one else knew about yet. Since growing up they put railings and signs and plaques and now other visitors go there, so my secret hideaway is not a secret anymore. I never owned it anyway.
We stopped by the lake too. A cop followed us there and asked if we'd seen an accident. I overheard that there was a terrible accident a few miles down the road. The people in the adjacent car described it to the officer: "It looked really bad." Sirens had been blaring in both directions in the hills as if lost, for hours. Whoever got in that car crash was probably long dead by the time they got there, if they ever did find it.
Next I stopped at my old high school and slipped inside the gates. I gave M my autobiographical tour. This is the spot where my friends and I sat in the car after S's suicide and A made me promise I'd never kill myself and she promised the same. This is where we used to sit at lunch. This is the tree S sat under. This is where I vomited all the way to the parking lot when my period started. This is how we skipped school. This is where I waited all evening for a parent to pick me up who never came, but the yard supervisor waited with me. I owe this town for the fact that I am alive, for looking out for me all those years.
Some things had changed. The music building is now named after my teacher. That's beautiful. The basketball courts are in the parking lot now. We played a bit. I noticed I played better there. Hometown advantage. The sun was slowly setting, casting a magical summer pink hue on everything, the temperature perfect, but the air smelled different. The train wooooooed in the distance. How happy I am when I am home! The girls field hockey team playing in the adjacent field behind the trees yelled out random periodic cheers and laughs.
We stopped downtown for tacos and already the cacophony of music had begun. A stylish chola drove by in a gorgeous vintage car and I swear I could see her perfect eyeliner from the other side of the road. Some things never change. Someone was having a wedding party in their backyard with live music. Karaoke was happening everywhere. A long line of Mexican cowboys in hats and belt buckles and boots were waiting to get into a club where a famous band was performing, their elaborately airbrushed tour bus parked by the train tracks. Everyone's cars and trucks were bumping Banda music. A teen girl in a passenger seat pulled a megaphone out to loudly compliment me on my car. Ah, home. That's exactly the sort of silly thing I might have done at her age to entertain myself, on this street, in our boring, yet not boring, little town. I smiled to myself. Maybe she'll move away too, and return many years later to tell someone: "This is where I yelled at passing cars with a megaphone when I was a kid."
Our tacos were of course perfect. The produce is cheap there because it grows there, and I know all the good farm stands, so we eat well there. M loves my town. So we returned a few days later to extend our tour.
This time I showed him where me and my dad used to lift bales of hay onto the back of his truck for our chicken coop. We ordered tacos there from a woman with a teardrop tattoo. We ate in front of the farm supply store with a view of the mountains and train tracks, the smell of hay and chickens in the air. I can't believe I'm from a place like this sometimes. It's more country than I even remember it being. How did I ever get from here to the city? And would I be able to acclimate back to rural life, if I were to return? Or am I an outsider now?
I could buy one of those cute little houses I always dreamed of living in, on a tree lined street where I could listen to the train pass every night. I could walk along the tracks and smell the hot tar in the sun while drinking a cold coffee from downtown, like old times. I could make friends with the local ladies who run antique shops and hear all their interesting stories again... I could line dance. I could literally have a cow. I could learn to lasso and shit.
We also went to the site of the shooting, laid on the grass and had a picnic. M said my whole face changed when I talked about it. I described innocent little Jimmy who I knew since the 4th grade, how he never should have had to witness that while hiding in a van with his family. I'm so glad no one I know was killed that day. But I'm grateful at how it brought us all together again. I think the moral of that story, and most stories, is, take nothing for granted. Everyone and everything you love, could be taken away in an instant.
On the way home there was a very bad accident that partially closed both directions of the freeway. A woman stood in the middle of the freeway, crying next to a completely demolished car. Someone was in an ambulance. A truck appeared to have flown across the center divide. I shuddered, slowly swerved around the shattered debris, and continued on, glad I guess to be alive, with all limbs attached.
We stopped for gas and a strange woman approached a little too close and asked if I could pay for some of her gas. I explained that I tried that before but my card rejects being charged twice at the same gas station. She vanished. Then as I exited the station I saw a homeless man sitting holding a gas can. Weird.
The bartender texted after 2 am, wanting me to comfort him about something. I fell asleep before I saw the messages so I didn't reply. I still haven't replied. Drunks and I live in different time zones now. I still care, but it's been so long since I lived in that world that I no longer know what to say.
And I've been reading my childhood diaries. I wrote something in there around age 16 about how we romanticize the past. My teen self wrote to my future self that my teen self in that timeline is no better than any other time, so not to assume the grass was greener when I was young. It sucks here just as much as it sucks there, was the gist of my teen rant on that particular day in the 90s. She intuitively foretold I'd reminisce and read those words in the future. Maybe she's right. It made me smile to see youth-me bringing present-day me back down to reality. She was a bright girl then indeed.
2:42 p.m. - 2022-08-11