The Macon Period
2017-present
Why is it so difficult to write about the present?
Writing about Macon from the perspective of my childhood is rather effortless. There always seems to be some memorable anecdote of exploring through the woods, tagging along with my brothers as they found trouble, or soaking up the summer sun and storms with an equal measure of joy. Yet for some reason, I cannot seem to find the suitable words to describe Macon at present.
In A Movable Feast, Hemingway talks about how being in France finally gave him the inspiration to write about his time in the midwest, I can’t recall where. For some reason I think it was Michigan but it was more likely Illinois. Perhaps it was not inspiration, but rather space. Perhaps I should not reference a passage I cannot remember well. Regardless of whether it was Michigan or Illinois he was writing of or if Paris provided the inspiration or the space for said writing, the point is he was not writing about his present.
Though coming to Macon was a return to the place I had spent most of my childhood and adolescence, it feels like a completely different place in many ways.
Things have changed.
People have changed.
I have changed.
But that something special remains.
It could be the regal, old buildings or the brick roads. It could be the music in the air from legends past and present. It could be the spirits of the Ocmulgee River and the Muskogee tribe who named it. It could be the energy of the surging renaissance that is reviving the residents. It could be a little bit of everything.
But I forfeit this attempt to write about it for the moment. I will use Hemingway as my shield should this be a disappointment and promise to resume the topic in the future.