Green Town

I see me, my eyes filled with tears, because it was all over, the night was done, I knew there would never be another night like this. No one said anything. We all just looked up at the sky and we breathe out and in and we all thought the same things, but nobody said.

Perhaps you may or may not know that the setting of Ray Bradbury's quintessential summer novel is based on Bradbury's youth in my own hometown. The first time I read the book (oddly enough it was curled up under the covers, in the dead of winter) I could picture every scene in my mind's eye, feel the descriptions as though they were my own childhood memories. I recalled the same goosebumps on my arms when I first set foot in the ravine where the Lonely One stalked his victims. Strangely, it's an excellent winter read as well, because you can almost taste that liquid sunshine on expectant lips and feel the freedom of new summer adventures yet to be dreamed. Suddenly gale force winds and the embarrassing, but necessary entrapment of a down filled parka seem miles away.

Sometimes, particularly in older parts of the city, I'll begin to feel lost in the pages of the novel again, and I experience the strange sensation of being between two worlds. This place is a place I feel tied to, and a place I can feel in my bones in a way that's very difficult to describe in words on a screen. In a way that I feel that someone with the same roots can understand. I used to wonder why it seemed like nobody could ever leave, and I always had a sort of "there must be something in the water" sort of attitude. I still do in a way, only because I feel like my life is on a crash course through a chain of events, of which this town is the catalyst.

I suppose everyone feels tied to his or her place of origin in one way or another, and in some ways it's a comfort to be a part of the middle of something, at neither the beginning, nor the end and still feel a sense of belonging, a puzzle piece-like fit.