I had the pleasure of spending a couple of weeks in Michigan last month and while I’m sure it would’ve worked out either way, the onset of winter weather here in Montana in early November made it the perfect time to close up shop for a spell.

My wife and I make semi-regular trips back to Michigan but it’s generally a quick trip for a specific event. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had the chance to settle in and get the extended back to the roots Michigan experience but that’s exactly what I was able to do this time around.

With my little sister’s November wedding acting as the impetus I started formulating a plan months ago, knowing it would be the perfect time to take some time off from work at the season’s end.

My original plan included debaucherously rabble rousing with friends, deer camp, fish camp and most importantly, the rare opportunity for our dispersed family to be together for a joyous occasion celebrating a much welcomed blessed union.

Circumstances conspired against the deer camp, opening the door for several extra opportunities for sibling shenanigans as well as the aforementioned debaucherous rabble rousing. Fish camp happened in spite of some challenging winter conditions and it did end up being a long enough stay that I was more than ready to return home and settle back into reality.

Of course the saying goes that you can’t go home again meaning a return to a place from your past won’t be the same as it was, likely leading to disappointment and disillusionment, something we’ve all experienced at one time or another, but this wasn’t that. Quite the contrary as a matter of fact.

A couple of years ago a friend sent me a picture of the house I grew up in. It was in rough shape. Peeling paint, sagging roof, cloudy windows…basically a complete state of disrepair and deterioration. Definitely NOT the house I remember. Seeing that picture hit me hard at the time. The actual physical structure was deteriorating but it seemed an appropriate metaphor as everything that had made that place what it was is gone. Those lives that created my lived experience are gone from there. It’s all memories now. I didn’t like seeing it but a crumbling structure has no power over the memories of the past.

While I was back there I spent a day driving around the old haunts with my older sister who hadn’t been back in decades. We drove by that house as well as the starter home we lived in prior to the time our parents bought their dream house on the lake where they would spend the next couple of decades before both taking their respective last breaths in that house in the early 2000’s.

The structural deterioration continues and I have no need to return to that physical address again. In this sense it is true that you can’t go home again but aside from this one place and this experience, my fondness for the larger sense of “home” persists and I cherish the time I am able to spend there.

The geography has a pull on me. Particularly Lake Michigan and the Pere Marquette River on which I spent countless hours over the years indulging my passion for fly fishing and in so doing, laying the groundwork for our eventual move to Montana.

But it’s not geography that makes the place, it’s the people that make the place so hanging out with the special souls I’ve known for the majority of my life, doing our best to recreate memories of life circa 1987 was an experience that left me with nothing but happiness (and maybe a hangover or two) and no hint of disillusionment.

Seeing my little sister doing her thing, living her best life, independent of and free from the sometimes debilitating power of the trauma of the past is heart-warming and makes things right with the world. I had the honor of walking her down the aisle and giving her away which is something I’ll always cherish.

Spending that time with my family, with my sisters and nieces and nephews in particular, as well as with the best friends I will ever have, defeats any despair connected to crumbling structures or poison from the past. So I would argue that you can in fact go home again. “Home” is made of memories, old and new, and those aren’t going anywhere.

A time will come when the people that make the place are gone. Should that happen while I’m still around I’ll likely not return to the physical place but until then I will return anytime I can to sit on a Lake Michigan beach or at a Muskegon Lumberjacks game with my wife and friends and family. I will return to float the cold currents of the Pere Marquette River and I will return to sit in the fall woods waiting for a trophy Whitetail to pass by. I’ll return to hang out with best friends Pub Crawling the past and the present and I’ll return to overindulge until 4 AM, reminiscing about the past while making future plans.

None of it is HOME. All of it is LIFE well lived in my estimation.

Home is in the daily. Presently in Helena and Wolf Creek MT, engaged in the present, contemplating the future and Embracing the Arc.