It became official this weekend when I bought a bike to keep in Columbus: I'm a joint custody kid. This was my first visit "home" since I moved, but I didn't get a lump in my throat every time I remembered that my time there was finite. It just seemed like, "Well, I'd better get back to Athens eventually, that's the only way I'm gonna get any work done." It's not so bad, this sort of split residence. It mitigates the grievances I have with both places. Columbus is still without power. The city of Athens voided my parking tickets. See?
As I was driving back from getting my hair cut on Sunday, extinguished stoplights on High Street like pendulums, the whole stupid town felt like a museum to the years I'd lived there. I saw the shop fronts and the bus stops and neighborhoods through fresh eyes again. Each time I passed a friend's old apartment, I imagined their images burned into the walls there, like an old computer monitor. I passed porches I've cried on, yards I've laid in, intersections where I wiped out resplendently on my bike. I wasn't feeling wistful or overwhelmed. I was just remembering.
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