these things are fading

Sometimes I can barely remember what it was like to live in Michigan for three years. It seems so utterly far away now: what it was like to be able to step outside and head out on foot to a library or restaurant or neighborhood, shaded by the trees that line the streets of Heritage Hill. I used to head out, messenger bag slung across my body, and catch the bus out to campus from downtown campus; I used to shop for groceries at Meijer or, when I was feeling like a treat, at D&W Fresh Market; I used to jolt awake in the mornings when our bumbling drunk neighbor, Andy—bless his heart—would slam the glass door of our house closed. Sometimes I miss the little kitchen with its black-framed windows, or the way the locusts in the backyard would create a lacy canopy in late summer. I forget what it was like to be cold so many months out of the year. Most often, I miss being able to distract myself from myself by simply taking a long walk around the city, or what passed for one. 

But more often, I can’t remember things, or I can only by trying very, very hard. It seems that we have always lived here, shared this one Honda, always holed up in the sticky summer heat. Always been disappointed by the grocery stores in this town. Always had these friends, always been able to drive down to Jacksonville for twenty-four hours and then back up the coast. I have always turned off the interstate and rolled down my window, I have always driven the last ten miles to town while listening to some alt-country song, I have always worn Ray-Bans and a plaid shirt, I have always seen the haze of burning fields and the shady pecan groves as I wind my way back to the little house on the corner, where my aging dog waits for me to come home.