Once Home...

Once Home...
Originally uploaded by Dannybhoy

Its strange going back to Charlotte. Particularly South Charlotte, where I grew up.

This is Stonecrest, a shopping center just a few minutes from my old house where I grew up. I worked my first job at the Harris Teeter (A wonderful grocery store) behind that far bulding. This courtyard is flanked by a Dean and Delucia's, Qdobas, Marble Slab Creamery all kinds of wonderful places to eat. its all very yuppie. Theres alot of money in the area, although I never had it.

My first break up happened here, while shopping for a wedding present for my brother. High School was stupid. Later I would build a box and fill it with memories to give to another girl. It was made of red oak stained with linseed oil. I had carefully arranged photos and inside jokes. She smiled as she sat at the edge of the fountain just behind me, now dry and empty except for coins that sit on the bottom like spent dreams.

All of this was once home to me. My family moved away. I went to college far enough away to know distance. Things have changed. New houses, new shops, everything growing like the kudzu that it replaces.

The other day I became incredibly disoriented driving on a nearby road. It was one of those roads that wound through several farms and demanded that you drive way over the speed limit with the windows down and the radio cranked. Now there is an elementary school and five or six new neighborhoods with earthy names to remind people that it used to be a farm. I didn't see any Horses, or even a field.

A place that was once home is like an old friend you knew as a brother. Someone you shared life with. Then, after years of not seeing each other you meet up again at a familiar place. The old friend is recognized, but theres so much more to his life now. These two images conflict in the mind's eye, a dichotomy of intimacy and time .
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