You can get there from here, though
there’s no going home.
Everywhere you go will be somewhere
you’ve never been.
–Natasha Trethewey, “Theories of Time and Space” (from Native Guard, the Pulitzer-winning poetry collection exploring her relationship with her native South)
It continues to amaze me how I long so much for familiarity in the midst of a newness I consciously carved out for myself (referencing my own ‘Bay to A transition’).
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The newness we “consciously” carve out? I think we have no idea what that is until we’re living it.
What’s striking to me in this poem (and in life) is that even when we think we might be returning to familiar territory–even if you had moved to Charlotte instead of Albany–we can still feel light years from that place. Because your emotional landscape isn’t just defined by place, but by experience.
My interpretation, anyway.
P.S. I’d love to see YOUR Bay to the A list!
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