Scene One: I return from whence I came...

On June 1st I picked up the pieces of my life and moved them back to the town I was born and raised in. I have for long periods of time in my life held an apprehension to become closely reacquainted with anything that has to do with Calaveras County, besides a few friends I still talk to from high school I have bleed all the ideals and mentality from my system over the last four years in college.

It was a quick 6 hour drive up into the foothills, until the bends and dips forced me to a long slow crawl along the barely paved roads. Past the barrier of oak trees the road snakes out of the hills like a long black tongue.

Driving in the high sierra is like climbing by hand, I hold onto the steering wheel tightly, wringing it, using it like its the last safe and sturdy place to put my hands.

The roads narrows, each corner is hidden by trees as I ascend into Murphys California.
I cruise down Main Street, and round past The Gold Nugget, a honky-tonk hole in the wall bar. A crowd on the porch chain smokes as I pass. It's 3:30 in the afternoon.

It's not so bad to imagine a life without being born, its not hard to replace all those familiar places with pictures in magazines. This thought seems a little too unforgiving, so I push it out of my head.

Each mile passes with growing apprehension. The store fronts in our little town of Arnold seem dark, the economy has taken the warmth out of the windows in recent months. I wonder what would happen if all of it was erased, how would I explain to people where I came from if I could'nt find it on a map.

Yet, I always seem to be able to find my way home.

The house is quaint on the outside, but inside, that interior is like being consumed back into an airless womb.

I love my parents, adore my brother, but the past seems to be thickly coating the walls.

I have to ask myself, what does it really mean to come home, what is a home?

I watch my brother and father chain smoke, my father asks:
"How much money do you have left?"
"Enough." I say.
"Good I'm broke."

My mother watches television with great conviction.

My brother asks me:
Do you want to poke out my eyes?

Our sense of humor is unconventional.

It feels the same as it did when I left for college, some things minorly different but still the same.

Nonetheless life is moving. I know I will find things, keep things, rearrange my perspectives of my family. No transition can go without emotion.