Jolie Smith explores the idea of home: past and present versions of the place, and dwells on the act of leaving and arriving these destinations.
Back Home
Back home, mom is sleeping in the house alone again. She’s forty-nine years old, but she doesn’t keep track anymore. Instead she pretends that you are her small child. Mom believes you’ve gone on a mission trip or even worse, conversion therapy. You haven’t been home in five years, but mom still believes in homecoming. She believes you’re going to come back to the house, snuggle up to her and watch the toaster heat up. Pop! Goes the slice of bread, hovering over mom’s mess.
You haven’t been home in five years, but mom still believes in homecoming.
Back home, your brother’s teenage body is stretched out like taffy. He’s spending hours online with his friends, who are in other places, shooting pixels with other pixels. He’s still mistaken for a girl sometimes, which has been happening since he was four-years-old. Just like mom wishes for you to fly back to the house, she longs to crane over your brother's milky skin. He’s beautiful, you don’t blame her. Back home, your brother runs back and forth to many houses. Sometimes he even sleeps at your mom’s ex-boyfriend’s house who plays the guitar and believes a woman’s body is her own. Last year, Robbie spent an entire day fixing your car but now mom says you have to unfriend him on Facebook. She makes you promise.
Back home, your brother is living in your grandparent’s house because someone called CPS. You miss their backyard. You used to call it Disneyland and now you think it is Disneyland without capitalism. There is free magic like berries, pines, and glorious webs. You used to throw ants into the glorious webs and watch spiders roll dinner into little balls. Now you’re a pacifist and hate to think that this once made you smile. Grandpa used to go in the woods with you. He used to say, one day you will miss sitting here with me and watching the planes go by. On the other side of the screwed up country, far away from your childhood, you think about sitting there and watching the planes go by.
Back home, but twelve years ago, mom is singing in the shower. She smells of boiling water and soap. When dad is home and mom is out of bed, they spend hours in the paint aisle of the home improvement store. They come home with tiny squares of color and lay them on the granite counter. You and your brother point out your favorites. On some occasions, your parents bring you. You sit on the edge of the wood display as your brother rolls his toy train back and forth, like a child stuck in a swing set. He doesn’t like swinging much because it goes so high and he doesn’t like water because your neighbor grabs you in the pool and brings you to the bottom of the deep end. You don’t like when he does this, but it’s far worse for your brother.
Back home, you searched for something to love, something that could love you back. But you’ve never tried chasing shadows until now.
But it’s not back then. You are here and you live in a cabin in a town called Lincoln. The library used to be a general store and you like to think about that. You wonder if the hum in your cabin is coming from the people who once lived here. Sometimes the shower turns on in a giant fit, or the stove starts on fire, or there are unexplainable whispers from the bedroom. This makes you afraid, but you remember dad telling you not to be afraid of anything. The forest is a good place to go and think. Perhaps God is there, he tells you with a mouthful of mashed mango. There are other things to be afraid of, but you can’t stop hearing the ghosts.
You live next door to a dog who chases shadows. He once fell off a cliff because of his devotion. Another time he barreled into a frozen pond at the sight of himself against the icy layers of his own loyalty. You think about how unusual it is for a dog to be in love with something like this. Back home, you searched for something to love, something that could love you back. But you’ve never tried chasing shadows until now. You discover that in the meadow there are no dead ends and you run with open arms.
Jim’s mouth opens in awe when he sees a northern pygmy owl, and you think that this might be the act of writing.
Your friend Jim tells you that when he was your age, he was more in love with the idea of being a writer than writing itself. You wonder if that is you, too. But Jim’s mouth opens in awe when he sees a northern pygmy owl, and you think that this might be the act of writing. Loving something that can’t love you back.
This time you’re back home just once more. You jot down the meaning of ponderosa—the feminine version of massive— to remember everything you’ve found in Lincoln. Massive massive massive massive. Like you’re becoming all the things you’ve loved and learned. Back home, you run to your mother’s house and find her with buckets of blue paint.