My Hometown(s)
1. My first hometown is a place I only know through the voice of my father. The rocky beaches, the lonely trailer, the naval base.
2. My second hometown is a place where my sundered parents fought at Eastertime over whose weekend it was.
3. My third hometown gave me a river as my backyard, a long road for my walk to school, a tiny library to introduce me to Nancy Drew, and bobbing for apples on Halloween in the Firehouse.
4. My fourth hometown was where I finished reading the Narnia series, sobbing my heart out because I didn’t want it to end; Narnia was so much better than real life.
5. My fifth hometown had a school with a pet boa constrictor, Kleeta, and was where I made my stand for my self.
6. My sixth hometown is the same as my second… though this time with only one set of parents, and finally friends to keep for more than a year.
7. My seventh hometown is a place which desperately wanted to be cool (as it was built on landfill and had something to prove), and saw me alone again after failing in ways I had never thought imaginable.
8. My eighth hometown is a place where I had thought I’d found peace… but really I’d only found fog, fog, fog, and fog.
9. My ninth hometown was where I changed, and grew, and perhaps finally grew up a little.
10. My tenth hometown is where I got my first White Christmas, was married, where my son was born, and where I will hopefully stay for a good long while.
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This is my first attempt at Northwest Mommy‘s Monday Listicles. I’m not sure I really did what was prompted, in that I said a little bit about all of my home towns. I moved around a lot as a kid, and so it really wasn’t possible to just pick one place. Also, the things that make the places special to me aren’t really landmarks — or, at least, not physical landmarks anyway. I hope you enjoy!
I'm Not Writing A Novel 
December 12, 2011 at 9:50 pm
What a wonderful and heartfelt list. I feel like I got to know a bit about you through a novel-even if you are not actually writing one;) and the end, a happy one, is perfect.
December 14, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Thanks so much Stasha!! Now if only I had *more* hometowns I could actually write a novel (or at least a novella..)!
December 12, 2011 at 11:26 pm
What a beautiful list! Ten different home towns, wow!
I liked this one the best: 9. My ninth hometown was where I changed, and grew, and perhaps finally grew up a little. – Lovely!
December 14, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Thanks Jackie! I actually agonized a little over that line… thinking it might be mistaken for a typo. So I’m really glad it spoke to you!
December 13, 2011 at 12:08 am
Perfect Monday Listicles post! I’m just starting to do it also! Can’t believe you’ve lived so many places! Sounds like each place changed you just a little bit more.
December 14, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Yay, it’s nice not to be the only newbie. 🙂 Thanks for visiting and the kind comment!
December 13, 2011 at 1:01 am
Welcome to the Listicles! I’m a newbie, too….today was my second Listicles post. You wrote a great list. I think you give a really important perspective on what it’s like to not have just one hometown. And the way you did it was just great. Places become our homes because of our experiences, not really because of landmarks.
December 14, 2011 at 3:11 pm
Thanks so much for visiting and the kind comment! It really took me a while of debating *which* hometown to write about before I finally figured out that my struggle to choose was *much* more interesting than a description of any single place could be.
December 13, 2011 at 2:32 pm
I love stuff like this. I don’t like doing them but I love reaidng others, epsecially yours.
10 different ones??? wow.
December 14, 2011 at 3:12 pm
So kind, glad you enjoyed!! I’ll keep writing lists if you’ll keep reading them. Deal?
December 14, 2011 at 7:28 pm
Great list! It was so neat hearing a memory about each place
December 15, 2011 at 8:12 am
As someone who grew up in so many different places, I could totally relate to this post… Some of them carried fond memories, while others, um, not so much.
I liked how you approached this topic. It felt real, heartfelt, and genuine. It’s bittersweet. It’s hopeful.
Great job, Venus!