You can never go home...

I spent the weekend at my parents home in Page, along with my three kids and my sister, her husband and their three kids. Throw in my parents and their three rowdy beagles and we had quite the house full! It was fun to spend time together and reminisce about how things were and how things have changed.
I'm sure you have heard the saying about how "you can never go home again...", talking about home as you remember it as a child and not how you see it through adult eyes. We drove through part of the town and it's apparent that the economic situation has gotten the better of a lot of people. Neighborhoods that had mostly nice, well kept homes are looking sad with just a few well kept houses. Neighborhoods we walked through on a daily basis as children, that I wouldn't even walk through myself now. My parents house has changed very little in the 13 years since I lived there full time, aside from a recent face lift (see picture above). They have slowly updated various rooms as they have emptied out their nest, but the feeling of home remains the same. I sleep uninterrupted amidst familiar sounds and smells with a familiar feeling of warmth and love and acceptance. My parents are getting ready to retire here soon and will be moving from our dear Page, which will be strange to think I won't have my childhood home to return to soon.
I pondered things as I drove home this afternoon, alone with my thoughts and surronded by the beauty of a rain-soaked landscape. (The kids enetertained themselves with a DVD and headphones) It made me think of how where we are from weaves itself through the very fabric of our makeup. I'm made up of towering buttes and pink sand and sage, of endless blue and skies ablaze. I'm made up of dust devils and rain while the sun shines bright, of breath taking views and crisp starry nights. The rush of the Colorado River runs through my veins, the sun, the Lake, the breeze wraps 'round me to take. I've left and moved on, I've ran far away and still home you do make.
Whoever said "you can never go home again..." was right in a sense, things may change and people move on and things may never seem the same. Where you came from is what makes you well, you! I'm a small town girl who left the small town, the small town never just never left me. Deep roots in the southwest under vast skies and endless sand, simple living, and child-hood memories envelope my being. I left home, home never left me. =0)