Someone said to me once, “You write who you miss.” She was right.

In three weeks, I’m moving back to my hometown, population 2300. Eureka Springs, AR. The next town over is twelve miles away, and you have to go there to get to Wal-Mart, which is where everyone gets everything. If you have any sense you have to wonder why I’m doing this to myself, but women I’m proud to consider family still live there, and it’s just time to go home.

Like the raw, sensual husky-voiced chef folding faded memories into food, or the Mud St. waitress who holds your eyes and doesn’t throw words into silence. Even the women that have passed are there, their spirits still warm as dusk over the limestone rooftops of Center St, and the memories of my parents still hang in the corners of the sky like cobwebs.

I’m tired of pretense, acquisition, and incongruence. I think for the first time in my life, the only thing I need is silence and the courage to write honestly about what passes through it.