Hello everyone! It’s me again. Thank you for choosing Hot Perspective & Validation, the destination for ONLY the most gorgeous minds(™)! I took a trip to my hometown after being away for 2 years—which is the longest I’d ever been away. There were dreamlike moments, there were emotional moments, and there were mosquitos. I know these 2 truths about where I’m from: time moves slower and nobody seems to lock their doors. Most of my family lives in the country or at very least goes into the woods, peers into the woods, makes a birdhouse, wanders, etc. Manmade sounds are fewer, allowing the symphonic conversations of nature to take over. For being somewhat isolated, this place retains a sense of community and knowing the what’s-what of every hour.
A neighbor will walk several acres just to leave a plastic bag filled to the brim with zucchini (that they grew ofc) at your doorstep.
You may find yourself listening to a 20-minute story about a black bear or an owl, as told by one of the elders, or you may be so enamored by someone’s pepper garden that you ask “How do you grow these???” and are just told “Epsom salts”. You may visit your childhood attic and discover a painting that your mom made in her teens, of her own horse named “Comanche”, and will carefully take it back to LA where it will find pride of place in the dining room.
I heard someone say “It is cool to be from somewhere.” and have been thinking about this a lot. Driving the hilly green backroads that glowed just for me, I surprised myself by recalling most of the mundane visual landmarks that I often used as guideposts to help me remember when to turn left (there are a lot of fields, in fact it is just fields). I passed a farm that shined like gold, an old house, a now vacant lot, and had specific memories tied to each one. Just as I’ve evolved, these once monumental places seemed much smaller to me now. But then there’s this: my father planted a tree for me on my 3rd birthday and it is very big now.