The above is a reference to the title of a book by Thomas Wolfe published in 1940, two years after his death – you can’t truly go back to a place where you once lived because it has changed.  Inevitably, you will have changed as well.

The phrase came to mind last week after Daveen and I looked at a house for sale in Sherman Oaks near the 405 Interstate.  After our tour we drove past two nearby houses that I lived in almost fifty years ago.

I have fond memories of both homes, though I hadn’t really thought about them for a while. Seeing both again was surprising and disappointing.

I lived in the first house until 1971.  It has a brick facade.  The brick was painted stark white then, with mounds of Korean grass in front.  Now the brick has been restored to its natural red color, and the yard itself has entirely different landscaping – tall trees, shrubs, and no grass at all.  I was startled.  Actually, I was shocked.

As we sat in the car I said to Daveen, “This house used to have a lot of curb appeal.  It was new and fresh.  Now I wouldn’t even want to go inside.”

“And,” I added,” I used to love this neighborhood.  Now I don’t.  Most of the houses seem old and tired.”

I only recognized the second house, a few blocks away, because it has a stucco wall in front and many stairs leading up to the front door.  “Ugh,” I thought, “who would want to climb thirty steps just to reach their front door?  Not me.”

Of course, forty-five years ago I didn’t give those stairs a second thought.  Today I prefer a single story house.

Old times were the best, weren’t they?  High School graduation was exciting.  Having young children was exhausting but fun.  Our trip to Antarctica was perfect.  I first visited Machu Picchu in 1972 when it was relatively unknown.  On a return visit several years ago I had to make my reservation a month in advance, pay for my ticket, and walk only on the marked path.

I conclude that it’s best to live in the present. Enjoy whatever you can right now, and allow fond memories to rest in peace.

My father loved deep sea fishing, and took me with him from the time I was eight years old.  I still remember our final fishing trip, when we each caught the limit of ten yellowtail.

“This is it,” my dad said as we loaded the fish into the trunk of his car.  “I’m never going deep sea fishing again.”

“Why not, Dad?”

“It couldn’t possibly be better.  I want to keep today fresh in my memory.”

Dad, you were right.  You can’t go home again.

Alan

I haven’t hugged anyone except Daveen for six months.  We haven’t gone out together at night – no movies, no plays, no dinners at a restaurant with friends.  The landscape of my calendar has no social appointments.  It feels as if I’m living at the North Pole looking out on ice with no landmarks.

And yet, I really don’t miss any of the above.

Well, maybe hugging.

In short, my life during the pandemic is less cluttered. Now I have time to focus more deeply on simple pleasures – a crisp salad for dinner, an uninterrupted telephone call with a friend, or meandering through my garden.  I also share breakfast regularly with my oldest daughter, who is now living with us.

I recently asked Robert, an attorney friend of mine, how he and his family are doing.

“It’s different,’ he said, “but basically fine.  We used to have family dinners only on weekends.  Now I work at home, so I stop every day at five o’clock to cook dinner.  After our meal together as a family, I go back to work.”

Many people I know have moved, often to live closer to, or with, family.  Many are also changing jobs.

It isn’t often that nature hits the “pause” button and gives us a chance to reevaluate our lives. But this is exactly where many of us find ourselves today.  As a pragmatist I say, “Let’s take advantage of the opportunity.  Let’s rethink our previous actions and habits, with an eye toward being mindful of what works best for us. What should we keep, and what might we discard?”  I think about this often for myself.

Since we now have fewer external distractions, we are living more intensively with a few companions, and less extensively in larger groups.  In a year or two we’ll return to “the good old days”.  But we also have the rare chance to move into “the even better days” by using this time to transform our lives in the direction of simplicity.

Alan

One silver lining of coronavirus is that Daveen has been cleaning out the garage. She recently found a draft for a piece that I wrote more than thirty years ago. Had I been writing a blog back then, it would have been an entry. That piece is as follows:

I’m forty-nine.  I have never been comfortable with fast dancing.  Actually, I’m afraid of it.

At a big celebration twelve years ago, one of my adult daughters won the fast dance contest.  I was proud of her.  I didn’t dance at all.

Every year my office holds a holiday dance. Most everyone loves it.  I used to dread it.  There’s a lot more fast dancing than slow (which is easier for me and . . . well, slow dancing can be fun).

Though it’s not a big issue in my life I still don’t like to feel left out three or four evenings a year (counting two or three weddings), as I obsess about my fear of fast-dancing.

Five years ago at our holiday office party Karen asked me to fast dance with her and I reluctantly agreed. She was good.  She was also kind.

“You’re doing great,” she said.  Others agreed.  I almost trusted them.  But I knew I didn’t know what I was doing.

My young daughter Ingrid likes to show off.  This evening, between work and dinner, I flopped down on the sofa and she ran up to me. 

I said, “Are you Ingrid?”

“No.”

“Are you Carol?”

“No.”  Laughter.

“Are you Mommy?”

“No.”  More laughter.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Star Dancer.”  Proudly.

“She wants to dance for you,” her older sister explained.

We turned on the radio.  Ingrid danced.  Fast.  Exuberantly.

How could she?  Ingrid had no dance lessons.  She didn’t know the rules.

Fortunately, she didn’t realize there were rules she had to follow.

So Ingrid left the rules where they often belong – in someone else’s mind.

While I wrote this thirty years ago, I still feel the truth at its core. As an editor of Rattle, I have found that children up to about ten years old often write great poetry.  That’s before they realize they are expected to follow some rules, and their natural creativity goes into hiding.

I’m considering a fast-dance with Daveen tonight.  I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know the rules either.

Alan