Home for the Holidays

raw thoughts on returning to the places that form us

This Essay includes a voice over beneath the pay wall (something I plan to start included more frequently in future essays). Please forgive some of the audio mishaps (I’m still figuring out the recording side of Substack and recovering from a cold).

I keep playing Noah Kahan’s “The View Between Villages” on my walks, in the car, during showers. The song ends and I hit repeat again and again. Momentum slowly builds as he sings of youthful innocence, adolescent trauma, the way place holds our memories like a time capsule. As Noah sings of being “a minute from home,” I see my former village, the bridge over the Haw River just before the exit where Flying J competes with Pilot. I see the stretch of Jimmy Kerr Road, the right turn down Trollingwood, the packaging plant, the entry to my childhood neighborhood with a salvage yard situated between suburban ranch houses.