I am back.
Back from road tripping and one week of training for a new job.
I return to the keyboard, as I have many times before, to write.
Ideas came to mind as I drove past peach trees and a restored house constructed either in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
New peach trees grow in an open field—the ones so small they are held in the ground with the assistance of rope or strong string.
Photos from my walking trails.
What does it mean to come back to any place?
Novels are written about the boy or girl who leave town. The character swears he or she will become someone and return only when necessary.
I felt that way about my hometown, so I followed the Dick and Jane story.
You know the one:
Jane goes to college. Jane has one wild year. Friends think Jane is crazy, and Jane swears she will never go home. Jane goes to England. Jane works as a journalist all over North Carolina.
But, the day came when Jane had to make a hard decision. All the simple sentences in the world could not translate that into a children’s learning how to read book.
Two years ago, I was ashamed to come back to my hometown. I thought I lost some sort of battle. It was nothing but a loss of pride. I had yet to realize plenty of time existed for me to become an author and, yes, a teacher.
In 2012, I began to look at my home with new eyes.
The town was no longer the place where classmates teased me because I did not wear clothes the right way or misunderstood the most basic concepts of teenage social life.
My home county became the place where old friends opened their arms wide when college friends slammed the door.
I received an email that announced I would become an author in my home county.
As I wonder down the best walking paths and continue upcoming blogs about the mountains, I remember why I live in that town on the border of the Carolinas.
Photos and Words by Rebecca T. Dickinson
Tagged: back, come back, coming home, honeysuckles, the path home, writing about home, writing tips
Whoa, wait, hang on. You are getting published!?!? Good for you! Tell me about it. How can you be so casual?
I am casual because there are so many great writers I respect out there, and I was published on four small projects. Two of the stories connected two my novel were published by two online literary magazines last fall. Two different literary nonfiction anathologies published my short memoir. One was released in July. Thank you for the support! I hope to achieve more in the future.
If that happened to me I would be standing on the roof with a megaphone announcing it to the world! You are much too modest. Stop it. Stop it right now. I insist you do a full-blown blog post on it. Be proud. You should be!
Sorry, I’ll stop sounding like I decided to be your mother.
I don’t think I will ever return to live in the town where I grew up. Getting away changed a lot for me, and I don’t have any close family in he area either. I would not look at it as a defeat if I did live there, I left for the change, and I changed more than I ever thought. A different me would be back.
All that said, I do like to look at pitures of the place as I didn’t have a bad childhood growing up there. I also use a facebook group from time to time, where members put up historical photos of the place. My dad saw an old picture of his dad outside his work, then contacted the person who posted to get a better copy.
Even though I have changed now, the place was and is a part of me.
I still live in the same city where I was born and haven’t made the step to leave yet. One day. Congratulations on your publicationment. Well done.