Six Feet Four Inches

I pondered all the reasons I cherished the small hometown I grew up in. I thought about Friday night football where I played the clarinet in the marching band. I stood in the stands amid my friends, wearing a tuxedo that was too big for my arms. I had no idea what was going on down on the field, but the music carried the night away.

I thought about my childhood home. The one building that I would always love because it festers the memories of my family. The chalk on our driveway as my siblings and I rode our bikes in endless circles. The fireflies that peppered our yard when the sun went to sleep. The summer heat of running through sprinklers and playing fetch with our dogs.

I thought about my favorite restaurant. The laughs I shared over a glass of wine as my body grew older. The Christmas tree farm my family went to every December — drinking cocoa, eating cookies, meeting Santa. There was magic in the air as we watched our Dad saw away at the trunk. We stood in the cold for hours, but our hearts were never numb.

I could tell you what street lamps took forever to turn from red to green. What restaurants are old and new. The owner knows my order and smiles as the bells chime on their door.

My hometown is not the place I love because of the coffee shops, libraries, or schools. My hometown is the memories I made.

I love the town I grew up in. I love the home I lived in. But do you need a home to have a hometown?

No.

A place, a home, is not my hometown. Memories, people, love, anything could be a hometown.

Could my hometown be a volcano, beautiful and alive, brewing a roaring storm of watery flames, waiting silently for your death? A reminder to make the climb, but always know that our time will come. Do not waste it.

It could be a roaring waterfall, pounding the lake so forcefully a mist appears in the dark. Under such a beating, beauty will grow if you know where to look.

It could be a river so green that the earth seems alive, only to be surrounded by a brittle brown, encasing the life in death. Do not let the brittle win. No matter how much it encompasses you, do not let it change your color because it will leak and colors bleed.

A cliff so high that it terrifies you. One gust of wind and you blow like a leaf swept off the ground — a reminder to risk. Do not let what scares you stop you.

It could be a golden city, brimmed with new adventures, delicious foods, and sites to see. A city full of people, but it doesn’t matter how surrounded you are. You could still be lonely.

No.

My home is not any of those things either. My hometown is forever moving. It is a walking, breathing thing that lives by my side, sharing in my joy and pain.

My hometown is six feet and four inches. It is dark, ebony hair with onyx eyes that look at me like I am alive. It is the calluses from years spent training until it learned that love is better than fighting. It is the lips that kissed away the pain. It is the deep, low voice that never uttered I love you until we were alone in the dark, tangled so tightly our bodies became one. It is the arms that lifted me up, not just my body but my spirit. It is the ivory skin that turns golden under the rays from memories made. It is the moles across his face that I imagine drawing a line, connecting the dots, and entwining our lives.

Hands to hold me.

It is the mind that encourages. The smile that ignites. The “good morning” that melts my heart. The laugh I join.

It is skin on skin until there is no separation, no divide because we are the halves of each other.

It is the dreams he has that we dared to speak out loud. It is the heart that is pure that loves with no end. The soul that is every color all wrapped into one.

My hometown is a hug that embraces me so thoroughly, lifting me off the ground until I reach the moon. The moon that comes out every night. I rely on its constance. I know and understand its glow. I am there with the moon for each of its cycles as I know he is there for me. Because we are forever changing and forever moving. We are never stagnant in one place. The only constant is knowing, trusting, believing to my core that he is mine and I am his.

So my hometown is not a place.

Him.

My hometown is him. It is wherever I am with him.