Where the heart is.

This pipe dream. This impossibility.

Five years--half a decade--five years ago in August. I closed the car door on my past, watched numbly as every passing road sign declared how far away I was going, let the miles dull me to a half-sleep, a waking dream.

I told myself I'd never like the heat, the drawls, the conservatives and their sometimes stifling religiosity. I told myself I wouldn't be southern, I would always be a northerner at heart.

I still don't like those things. Still don't like country music or whiskey or big trucks or hunting. But I like the friendliness. I like my seemingly small town. I like the spring and fall here, even if the winter isn't good enough. I like the mountains and the city I'm near.

And the people. My friends. I love them.



I don't know what I am--north or south. I don't know if it matters.



And now, a choice. Old and new, past and present, a dream and an old promise.

When I went back, it wasn't right. My house had changed--the walls, the floor, my beloved trees gone, the familiar blue clapboard turned an ugly shade of periwinkle. And my friends--they had changed. I had changed. I didn't fit. I had grown.

Unexpectedly, suddenly, I missed Franklin. I missed home. I said it to myself, said home, and then I awoke. Gone were the empty disconcerting rooms of my youth, gone were my old haunts and distorted memories. I awoke, and I was here, in Tennessee, calling it home.



The choice--old and new.

The pipe dream.

Was that all it ever was? Five years of dreaming blown into smoke by a single dream?



Where do I belong after all?


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