Home

Are the children of Colorado raised any better? Oh my stars, no. Our children have been coached to use their manners -- especially in someone else's house -- and to refrain from interrupting. People comment on how well-mannered they are; and I fight the urge to say, "All it takes is a little coaching." (Although I confess my children always have rejected most foods served to them, by me or anyone else, and it seems the best I can do is to get them to do so politely.)

So we are back from the mammoth road trip home. In the span of ten days we saw 11 states, covered 4,000 miles; and used 180 gallons of gas. We saw Kansas City, St. Louis, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Oklahoma City, and Amarillo. We drove down part of Route 66. In Oklahoma, we saw a wind power plant (I will post photos at some point). My favorite part of the trip (not the visit home) was walking down Beale Street in Memphis. Kathleen might know that I am a tremendous jazz and blues fan, and I picked up an R.L. Burnside CD that entertained us the rest of the way home. I almost got ditched somewhere in Arkansas, an event that has provided the seed for my next short story. We saw two wildfires, both in Texas. A wonderful, epic time.

And home. Being home. The whole time I was gone, I tried to distill the experience into written word. I came up with two sentences. Here they are:
I had forgotten how gray and turgid the sky could be. I had forgotten the feel of wet cool on my cheek.
Maybe it is as my fellow North Carolinian Thomas Wolfe said -- can you not go home again?* It was nice to be back, to listen to NPR again (Denver lacks an NPR station on FM radio, believe it or not), to go to the Around the World Market and to the Whole Foods in Cary where Kathleen and the kids and I would grab lunch on Saturdays. I saw the spot where Dan Krakauer, the main character in my novel, dies. I did not see his dream home, which was, not coincidentally, the house where I spent my last four years in North Carolina. I couldn't bear to look at it. I would want to be back in it, and I might feel compelled to criticize what the new folks have done with the place. It's no longer mine. I have decided, at long last, to let it go. It's Dan and Ellie Krakauer's place now.

*Has anyone but me actually read Look Homeward, Angel? I thoroughly enjoyed it.