sprawl i (flatland) // arcade fire, sprawl ii (mountains beyond mountains) // arcade fire
sprawl is defined by merriam-webster as “the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city.” the word can be synonymous with the suburbs, but i don’t know if i’d agree. then again, maybe i don’t know that much about the suburbs.
but i think hernando is the sprawl. hernando is this little town that veers off from the main interstate like a weigh station. within walking distance from my house is the track and field park, the children’s park, several churches and locally-owned shops, and town square. last year, our kroger was demolished and up-sized to a kroger marketplace. everyone was buzzing about it for months, mostly because it was supposed to have a starbucks in it. a starbucks and a little food court and an actual cheese section, which my dad was very excited about.
hernando was always homey, but it never quite felt like home. it always felt like a halfway-home. an in-between. not quite backwoods country, not quite big shining city.
there used to be times when i thought i’d never really get out. that i’d be doomed to live in the suburban purgatory that i never quite belonged in forever. i wanted to go out and find my people. i wanted to find people who didn’t tell me that my hopes and expectations were unrealistic.
i wanted to find those people here, but i don’t think i’ve found them yet. it’s like i’m still stuck in a halfway-home that i should feel like i belong to, but don’t.
when i’m going back home, back to hernando and the kroger marketplace and the community that never quite felt like community, i actually feel like i’m home again. when driving back to msa, my mom always texts me when i get in, “home?” and i say yes, because techincally, msa is home.
but it doesn’t quite feel like home. it feels like the in-between again. and i’m so tired of being stuck in the in-between. i want a place to certifiably call home, i want concrete and certainty and home, and i’ve started to realize just how at home i actually feel in hernando.
when school first started, i didn’t want to come home. i dreaded every weekend i would have to go back and be away from my true home, but now i long for the days i see commerce street. i long for the days i can walk into la siesta and shake our waiter’s hand and he knows exactly what i want before i can form the words on my tongue. i long for the familiarity and the comfort and the community i didn’t realize i had until i wasn’t in it anymore.
i don’t quite know where home is. i know i have homes, but i don’t know where my home is. i don’t know where i live. maybe i never will get out of the sprawl.
but then again, maybe i don’t want to.
