The childhood, the place.

Family is a different idea than we know. The childhood, the place.

So I accidentally did an interesting thing while reading Nick Carbo's Direction to my Imaginary Childhood, I read the poem without reading the title first. I was aware of our theme, family, but I suppose I was too excited to get into the poetry that I just skipped the title. So, once I reach the end of the poem

a house with an acknowledgements page 

an index, open the door and enter 

this page and look me in the eye. 

I am confused and blown away. I thought I was supposed to understand the location of the poem, so I was not ready for the sudden switch into the imagination. Once I read the end I looked to the title for a clue as to what just happened, it suddenly made sense and I connected with it more personally. As a child I would use books as an escape from an often chaotic and occasionally violent home. Being able to get lost in a better world was sometimes the best part of my childhood. Sometimes those we feel deeply connected to like family are on pages. When a character is written just the right way so that you can connect to them on your level they become part of your world too. I read imaginary childhood as spending your childhood in an imaginary world. Maybe it's safer, more fun, or just different enough from reality for you to get lost, in a way you can never do quiet as well as you can as a kid.

And then I read Thinking American by Hayan Charara and I end up crying just a little. See I'm from Taylor, Michigan which is about 20 minutes downriver from Detroit. I didn't grow up in the city, but where I grew up it was the city. I rode the people mover long before I knew Bart was anything but a Simpson. So from the first line it's scratching. As a former Michigan resident my ears perk up anytime I hear someone else mention my birthplace. That hope that we'll share the same longing for coney island or bettermade bbq chips or something. 

the city beside the strait home.  

Make no mistake, it's miserable 

After all, you bought a one-way 

Greyhound ticket, cursed each 

and every pothole on the road out. 

where you were too tired 

to complain. You never go back. 

Detroit is a shithole, it's where 

where you were pulled from the womb

Hayan touches on something that I always find hard to explain. I have lived in California for most of my life now, but Michigan still sounds like home even though I would not want to return. Our childhood memories are often intense, and that can be good or bad. Even if a place is filled with bad memories, there can be a sort of primal pull, at least for me, to there place where you started. Where you were pulled from the womb. 
Yes I believe my childhood home, where I remember my family the way it was when I first understood what a family was, can be a place I love to visit in my heart but have no reason to go back to anymore. This family I remember is very different now, adding and subtracting members. The place where I grew up is very different now too, I can't always find my way when I visit. Both of these things have evolved. Both are negative and positive. They have good memories and bad, not constrained to a wholesome Norman Rockwell painting.

Also, the pothole line is hilarious. People often joke the Michigan state flower should be an orange reflective barrel. And practically everyone smokes cigarettes.