As I write this I sit in Marshall’s computer lab, a place that at different times has been study center, escape haven and newsroom for me. It’s now June and I’m still traveling. DC, Wheeling, Weirton, Huntington, St. Louis, Chicago, St. Louis, Huntington, and the final destination, Northern Panhandle.
It’s my second stopover in my hometown and time has begun to drift. The constant déjà vu element of this trip is no longer shocking, and I half expect to see my past self, with long, curly hair and notebooks in hand emerge from Old Main, or be standing outside the Java Joint engaged in constant political debate.
In the past weeks I have seen people I no longer see, gone places I no longer go, thought things I no longer think. Place and time impress upon us as much as we define them. Marshall in the summer is still quiet, and from the library one can hear the constant pitter patter of the water from the Memorial Fountain striking the basin.
In St. Louis, the Arsenal Street house is the same as it always has been. When I walk in my guest room I am half surprised that I instinctively know where the light switches are, where I can plug in my cell phone, how the metal chain on patio door blinds lets the light in while the stiff cloth string pulls them back. The Arch still watches over my part of south St. Louis and the ornate steeple of St. Francis De Sales leans toward Gravois Avenue, pulling ever more slightly apart from its foundation.
These places are in me, and I am in them. Past, future and present blend and I am no more significant than a drop of water in the Ohio River meandering slowly but steadily toward the sea.
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