I'm traveling for the summer, and am posting about my experiences, as they occur to me. I will post as often as I have internet access. Welcome to a life unhinged......
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We are driving away from West Virginia, where we spent the
weekend visiting with extended family and re-connecting with my partner’s
fathers childhood in Huntington. I hadn’t thought much about this, our first
stop on our trip, at all, instead focusing on the hours it would take to drive,
the last push to get out of Westtown School. We did it, right on time, and
managed to get to the Comfort Inn of Barboursville, adjacent to the Huntington
Mall, in time for dinner on Friday.
The inn itself was a jarring reminder of what we were
visiting. Truly a concrete jungle, the Huntington Mall stretches at least 50
acres, nestled in a ring of West Virginia mountains. The heat coming off the
parking lot as we walked to dinner at Olive Garden was oppressive. The early
morning jog I managed around the perimeter of the mall worked only because it
was before sunrise. A few abandoned cars, or worse, cars with folks sleeping in
them, smattered the giant grid of parking lines. It was surreal to say the
least.
The family reunion was motivated by a cousin looking for his
roots, in the face of the smallness of his immediate family. Four years ago,
Paul sidled up to Milton, WV, on his hog, called over to Jeff Carter, his only
contact, and started the journey of re-connection with this slice of land that,
unbeknownst to me, is in my partner’s blood.
I really didn’t prepare for this trip. The depression of
Huntington and Milton and Barboursville came like waves of nostalgia, reminding
me of the depression of mid-80s Providence, Rhode Island, where I grew up. Empty storefronts, the specter of
industry and business, the population of Huntington currently half of what it
was when Norman’s father was growing up in the 1940s and 1950s.
And more, the sense of pressure and brilliance of memory. I
asked Norman’s father if he was enjoying the visit, as we wandered through
Ritter Park, and he let me know there was a dual sense of the powerful memory
of his childhood, and the pressure and tension of knowing that Huntington is
much diminished from his time there. He let me know that for a time he had the sense of being attracted and repelled by moving back, and had the very common and compelling desire to
regress into his childhood sense of safety, returning to his mother’s arms,
safe as houses.
But he recognized the risk of regression and chose to lead a life unhinged from this place that holds the names of his ancestors on
mausoleum wall and park title. Though the deep history calls, and he returns
every couple of years.
Visiting like this, given these broad swaths of information, was overwhelming, as we roasted in our mall adjacent Comfort Inn. The ring of mountains that witnessed the excess and decay of Barbourville seemed a rebuke that left me feeling like my sweat was from some unnamed shame, instead of the very normal heat ramped up by concrete.
We all come from these mountains, these places that are rare and
precious, and endangered. These places live their sacred roles, their profane manifestations, as do we, as we live on and in these lands. The land is we, and we are the land. No matter how much concrete we chuck over it, or depressions we visit on its communities. Life wants to live, and all parts are in the river.
I didn’t prepare for this trip, but family found me
on it. Amen. Amen.
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