(no subject)
I spent a whole weekend in the Smoky Mountains with three other girls and felt the weight of every single visit so sharply.
i thought of my brother, and of my grandmother, and of the knife store where we’d buy pocketknives to whittle with that isn’t there anymore. i thought of how the first time i saw a hologram video game was in the base of the space needle, of how my dad let me drink cappuccino from the BP to stay up late enough to watch the New Year come in, of how unruly and wild the alpine slide felt the first time i rode it. riding the chair lift, ice skating at ober gatlinburg with my cousins, begging my parents to take us to Dollywood… every year, there was a new adventure waiting for me there.
now there are so many people, so many ugly souvenir stores, so many moonshine and novelty wine shops. And maybe that was all there then, too, but maybe it wasn’t and either way I guess it doesn’t matter.
I wanted to sit and watch them pull the taffy, thinking of how my uncle explained it to me. He bought me some candy after I flew out of his lap on a tubing adventure and into the river. I swore it off for five whole years after that, sitting on the banks and skipping rocks while my cousins went down and back all afternoon.
Even the brown color of the road signs makes me feel homesick. It’s hard to be in a place that means so much to you, but you’re the only person there experiencing it.
So happy to be there at all!
i thought of my brother, and of my grandmother, and of the knife store where we’d buy pocketknives to whittle with that isn’t there anymore. i thought of how the first time i saw a hologram video game was in the base of the space needle, of how my dad let me drink cappuccino from the BP to stay up late enough to watch the New Year come in, of how unruly and wild the alpine slide felt the first time i rode it. riding the chair lift, ice skating at ober gatlinburg with my cousins, begging my parents to take us to Dollywood… every year, there was a new adventure waiting for me there.
now there are so many people, so many ugly souvenir stores, so many moonshine and novelty wine shops. And maybe that was all there then, too, but maybe it wasn’t and either way I guess it doesn’t matter.
I wanted to sit and watch them pull the taffy, thinking of how my uncle explained it to me. He bought me some candy after I flew out of his lap on a tubing adventure and into the river. I swore it off for five whole years after that, sitting on the banks and skipping rocks while my cousins went down and back all afternoon.
Even the brown color of the road signs makes me feel homesick. It’s hard to be in a place that means so much to you, but you’re the only person there experiencing it.
So happy to be there at all!