Going Home

This evening, I drove down to Malden to spend the weekend with my family. Basically, I drove down to bake and decorate Halloween cookies with my nephew, Robbie (aka "The Bobchuck"). While this may seem a bit early for Halloween activities, he has been wearing his bat costume for approximately 2 weeks now and has managed to talk my mom into decorating the house for Halloween. Apparently, it has also been decorated for 2 weeks as well. Isn't it amazing what your parents will do when they become grandparents! In the spirit of fairness, when my brother and I were younger, my parents were both teaching, so the idea of having tons of decorations was not on the top of their list. I now can completely sympathize with them, since I'm thinking I'll do well to buy candy for Halloween and then manage to put up a Christmas tree and decorate the apartment before the end of Christmas break. But it still amuses me to see all of the festive decorations!
Since moving away from Malden, I can now honestly say there are some things that make me feel nostalgic when I return. As I drove down tonight, I had the moonroof open on my car. Upon leaving Dexter and heading south on 25, I could smell the defoliant used on the cotton and could see the large, rectangular, white bales sitting in the fields due to a wonderfully bright full moon. The closer I drove to Malden, I could start to see the lights from the racetrack north of town and then, as I drove down Business 25 in town, I could see the lights on at the football field where the Friday night game was ending. The traffic leaving the ballgame is about the closest thing Malden can claim to having a traffic jam. For all 4 years of high school, I never missed a home game due to being in band, but oddly enough, I never paid much attention to the games. What I remember most is spending time with my friends. I learned no great love of football or even a great devotion to my alma mater, but I did learn the value of friendship. Now the things I remember most about the games were laughing at something one of our four band directors said, how Sebrina's hair could defy gravity and gale force winds, and Kevin's rendition of "The Little Mermaid on Crack".
It dawned on me tonight that once my parents are no longer here, what will there be to draw me back to this place? The friends I grew up with are gone, off to bigger towns where there are more jobs and better opportunities, less prejudices and expectations to live up to, or reputations to overcome. Once my family is gone, there will be no reason for me to return to this place. The sad reality is that my hometown is slowly dying. The Federal Mogul plant is shutting down at the end of this year. The school, while nice, is no longer in the same State classification that it was when I was in school. Promises of new industry and factories are just that, promises and empty ones at best. The reasons for the decline are many and depend on whom you talk to. The people I knew as a child are either moving away, or sadly, passing away. Things are no longer the same and it just drives home to me that time is passing, I'm growing older, and you really can't go home again. No one tells you how true that is when you leave for college. It's only when you try to return that you truly learn that lesson. Even when I returned to live in Malden and teach in the area for seven years, it wasn't home anymore. I never felt comfortable here after leaving. However, I miss seeing cotton fields when the bolls are opening. I miss the taste of a perfectly ripe watermelon bought from a roadside stand at the edge of a field. I miss the friends of my youth and regret that I didn't spend more time with them enjoying the fun and laughter they gave me, and I wish I had let them know how much they meant to me. We are all so busy now. We have scattered out over hundreds of miles and several states. Some I keep in touch with, others I have lost contact with and have no idea of where they are, and others I read about through their blogs. Our lives are now in other places besides here.
Do I dream of returning to live in my town? No, this is not the place where I want to retire. This is not the place where my life is, or probably will be, carried out. I don't want to raise my children here. I want to live in a place that is bigger, with more opportunities, more diversity, and more anonymity than is offered to you in a town where everyone knows everybody's business, public or private. Yet I miss the way the cottonfields look like snow in the light of a beautiful harvest moon.