They Say You Can’t Go Home Again.

My friend Ellen, I think1, once insisted on Twitter that your hometown is where you were born, period. No other place could be your hometown.

I viscerally didn’t agree with this, but didn’t say anything because I couldn’t figure out why. Much later, I think sometime in 2012, I realized what I was thinking. Namely, your hometown may or may not be the place you currently reside and it may or may not be the place you were born. Your hometown is the place you know. The rhythms, the roads, the speed traps, the truly unsafe places, the places people think are unsafe that are fine, the upscale places, the hidden gems. You know this place in your bones.

For me, while I deeply love Chicago and could happily live there the rest of my life, my hometown has always been Albuquerque, New Mexico.… Continue reading →