returning

i try to tell the difference, i try to find the little seam that separates the two places, but more i look, the more invisible the stitching becomes. my first days back in alabama i thought, i can see it! i can see the woolen thread, the obvious divide between where i came from and where im now, always, returning to.

the fabric has a strange texture- im not sure i recognize it. i have to analyze and run my fingers along it, i have to recite the ways it differs from what i now know as normal. but by the time i have to go, by the last night hoodie turns off her giant porcelain monkey lamp in between our two twin beds, by the last night ive stood in a smoky bar and listened to music that comes from places untouched by money, i have to remind myself that this is my fabric, this is my swatch of the quilt, this is the place that i know by potholes and smells, by coughs and fingernails. the swatches arent even connected, they shouldnt be compared- they are from separate quilts.

i go back there and every time i notice two things: nothing has changed- will still pats my back when he hugs me, hoodie still stops at green lights, davenports still cuts its pizza into squares. but by the time ive left, during the course of each little holiday, everything, absolutely everything, is different. like david taking my hand as he was leaving the bar on the night we celebrated will's birthday, and saying "i dont like it, but its ok." and he squeezed my hand as he was holding it, because he didnt want to walk away yet, but there was really nothing left to say, and because just days before we walked into the birmingham country club together for hoodies debutante ball, me wearing cherry red lipstick from lancome and him in a tux, down the hallway lined on either side with real christmas trees covered in white lights, and he put his hand on the small of my back like he always has, and we walked into the ballroom and forgot about the fact that for all of us, this was the end of the beginning, the true, bold lettered end of the beginning.

because never before have i snuck murray and justin into hoodies house, on tiptoes up the stairs and into her room, where hunter and will and theo and foster and paige were sitting on her beds, the beds i made collages for jimmy on in 9th grade, the beds ive talked my way to sleep on for nine years, the beds that have cradled secrets and lies and laughs muffled by pillows. the very beds that soaked up my tears about justin, about edward about marcel about reeves, the very beds i asked hoodie to just be honest, do you think he likes me? and there we all were in her closet, sitting on her carpet- this has never happened before. this is changing everything, and i can watch the instant it morphs into something new and altogether foreign. right now- as justin says to me "stop! you cant do that!" as if i belonged to him, as if after all those years and after all of my staring out windows and wondering, he could tell me what to do. thats the moment it changed, and no one knew it but me.

because never before have erika, jane and i watched hoodies mom dance, swishing her hips around making her turquoise dress sail, with anyone, let alone with men who werent hoodies father, men who werent good dancers, men who tried to talk to her as she kept her eyes on her feet, her eyes on the pattern she was drawing around them, despite them. we watched as hoodies dad watched, and as he cut in for a slow one. we watched as they closed their eyes and didnt speak a word for the whole song, and never before have we done that.

never before have david and i played darts, or hoodie and i gotten a manicure together. never before had i tasted o'carrs chicken salad, or gone to the garage to drink. never before had hoodies mom driven me to the airport at 4 am, had hunter made me cry, had will strangled justin, had i realized that altamont boys will always, eternally, prefer altamont girls. never before had paige and i sat in a heap on the floor in between hoodie's beds, laughing so hard our eyes closed at things that should be laughed at, at things that were waiting in a tiny sterile room somewhere for two people, two people just like us, to open the door and let them out so they could finally be realized, so they could finally be tossed around between all of us, worshipped because they were the things that needed to be laughed at then. they had been waiting for that moment, waiting in the tiny sterile room, for us to need them.

there is always a moment in birmingham, an uncontrollable moment like rear ending a car even though youve been slamming on your brakes for seconds, that takes me by the shoulders and looks me right in the eyes:

this is the place you are always returning to.