It starts the moment the car turns onto the road. You’d think every detail would be tattooed onto my heart. But as I drive away they fade, they fade as though I passed right on through.
Some people fold home up like a tea towel and lay its neat, woven square just so in their suitcase to take out from time to time and run softly against the cheek.
Not me. Not me. I shed home like tracks in a blizzard.
My father knew he had reached our valley by its smell, by the thickness of the air, and then all the details of his boyhood just across the lake would split open and tumble out like spiders from an egg sac.
When I head out, those spiders are left scattered and wandering into their shadows.
Like now.
Home smudges into something soft and pale and drifty behind me, a quiet wake, foamy lace.
And when I return, it’s always a surprise. Oh you. Oh this.
Nostalgia for a Phantom Place 