Going back to Tennessee was like...visiting a place that had dissolved into pure memory. It was an odd sense of deja vu as we drove through Hendersonville: a town that had at one time seemed exciting and big but now appeared as a simple, sleepy, and small Southern town. As we climbed over hills or turned corners, it was weird seeing places that I recognized yet had seemed to have forgotten. It's like these mental pictures were dug from the bottom of my memory and brought into clearer focus. Fuzzy places that I had seen in my dreams were now reality, whether it was a corner on Old Shackle Island Road or a hill on Timberlake Drive. We passed the roller skating rink, our old house, Shipley's donuts, the pool where I learned to swim, and so many other places that were a part of my (somewhat brief) childhood. We even went to Kid's Kingdom, a community playground that had been a mile long ten years ago but has somehow shrunk in my absence. In the five years since I've been there, so little has changed. The South is so constant it's almost relaxing. I realize that I've missed more than just the mild winters. It's the gorgeous autumn weather, the laid back lifestyle, and the rolling hills that shape the layout of civilization.
