Memories of childhood.

The home that I grew up in was in Columbus, Ohio. The midwestern skies would grow dark with billowing clouds during the warm summers. Often my mother would take the three of us younger kids out on the back porch. We would curl up next to her on the glider, and she would tell us stories of celestial bowling alleys and God's winning score. This is the childhood that I try to remember from Columbus. I often listen to Mary Chapin Carpenter sing about growing up "where the tall elm's shade," and I go home.

The most oft missed and regretted thoughts I have about Ohio is my lack of time getting to know my sister, Jamie. I know that there was a distance beween us after the divorce of our parents, yet there was a connection that I feel will never be broken. The same little freckled girl has now grown up and made me proud to be her little brother. There are moments when I feel as though my free-spirit, and her grounded sensibilities tend to keep us apart. When those feelings occur, I bare in mind the warm summer nights catching lightning bugs, playing Hide-and-Go-Seek, and the feel of the cool breeze in our faces as we rode our bikes down the path behind Binns Elementary School.

This is the light that illuminates my lantern. This is the thing that keeps me going. There are many that say you can't go home. In the adult world, this may be true. However, by holding onto these memories, it is as though I never left. Holding onto these memories will keep me looking to the skies "under the tall elm's shade, looking up at the blue, as the blue stared back."