Feeled, honey. Feeled.

The Balmer Thing
ETA: This could be *so* much longer, I think.

Can you feel at home somewhere you’ve never even been? Maybe if you can love some place for being crime-infested and riddled with drugs.I always have loved the underdog. Charm City is a feisty little underdog, overshadowed by The Big Apple and those jerk-offs in DC.(But it was learning about Baltimore that pushed me to see the District’s, other more, human face.)

My real home town is relentlessly sunny and new, full of transplants from Chicago who see a miracle in our mild winters and non-rusted cars. Aside from Cubs fandom, they leave their funk at home, the better to enjoy what the ads call lifestyle. I find it lacks both style and life, but we have six malls. When Krispy Kreme opened, not only were there lines around the block, but the news sent a reporter to interview the people as they waited. I was ripe to cheat on this place after that.
Funny that it was a New Yorker reading the line “the city of the broken hearted,” that gave me an adopted hometown.Nobody comes to either of us seeking glamour, but we both are hanging in, despite not quite knowing where we fit as the world changes around us. Writing has given both of us life, but not really the one we were expecting, but we don’t share this often...it’s just not our way.

I was ripe to cheat on this place after that.

Oh, man.

That and the people standing like yokels watching an electrical transformer come in by train...I thought nothing could be more shame-filling than the Mecham MLK flap, but that has to be close.(Hand to face) No, I'm Canadian. Really. Or you know, from Balmer, bunky. Or hon.

I love Aimee's "Home" drabble. Whither thou goest, I will go...

Drabble #56, Home

Photograph Two:

I'm five, sitting on the front steps of The Hermitage, squinting into the sun, mouth trembling. Daddy's coaxing me to "smile!" and Mother grits through her teeth, "Stop that crying!"

My pretty beloved redhaired doll is clutched close. Her right arm is in Mother's handbag. I'm distraught; dismemberment is personal and threatening, and no one has thought to tell me that she can—and will—be mended. I will always have an irrational dislike of The Hermitage.

My parents' friends built a replica of Mt. Vernon; I rode by it every day on the school bus, passed it on every drive to my parents' house. When I finally visit the real Mt. Vernon, I'm unaccountably comforted.

Wonderful topic, Teppy!

Thanks -- though "home" was Deb's suggestion; I just added the pictures.

Photo One. Word count: 100

Dear Miss Roberts,

I was a nurse at the 95th Evac at Anzio. Enclosed, please find your picture. I'm sorry it didn't stay with Cpl. Hunter.

I don't remember much about that night. After a Brit Spitfire intercepted the Kraut bomber, the bomber tried to gain altitude by jettisoning its antipersonnel bombs on us.

Freddy was already gone when they found him, but was still holding your picture. He used to say, "Looking at my Irene in the moonlight, brings me home in my dreams." He slept with it on moonless nights, too.

My Condolences,

(Ret.) Lt. Barbara Stewart, R.N.

Ah. I'm glad I didn't read the others, 'til I got mine posted, or I wouldn't have done it. Aimee, you should be in here, all the time.

I hear other people use the word, and I wonder if I'll grow into it. Looking around, I think "This is nice."

It'll do, for a while.

The itch will come. It always does. I don't know if it's a push or a pull, but it's insistent. I can fool it sometimes, running thousands of miles, but I know it really wants me to cross a border, an ocean, a cultural chasm.

While other people can know, and nest, I can only guess.

Maybe someday I'll tire of gnawing off my leg to escape.

Cindy, I like yours. That picture's info says it was dated 1973--but it sure looks 1940s to me, and I first thought of WWII, and home fires burning, etc. But my second glimpse of the wall took me right home to the Blue Ridge. Those walls, and many of the public buildings, were built by the CCC. There are several underpasses that look just like the arch Gandalfe rides through on his way to Isengard in Fellowship, built at the same time. It's such a grounding feeling of where my life has been lived to see that stonework in a photograph of a stranger.