Every town has its ups and downs...

And I'm in Nottingham, again. I've really been trying to cope with the implications of the term 'old haunts' over the last 24+ hours. An old haunt rather implies that the places I am traversing now I once visited before as a haunter, if you will, a ghost. But that's not the case. When I was here before, this was my life. I actually lived in Nottingham less than 90 days (in fact, I may not've truly reached that total yet, so far as nights slept here are concerned), but it became home. When I first came round here again 4 weeks ago, I turned onto my old street and stopped dead in my tracks as my eyes adjusted and my brain registered one word: 'Home.'

But this isn't home, it couldn't be-- I don't think. This is a University town. This is the sort of place that really isn't home to anyone. People come here only on temporary bases. It's when they come back, as I am now, that they truly haunt the place. I float around, remembering a life that was, the friends who've already moved away again, seeing the houses that I used to know the residents of, and I know that my time here is well done, but I cannot leave, I cannot put this place, the life I had here, to rest, and I merely hover at the fringe...

But it's not like that, really. Yes, there's so much different: people gone, doors no longer open, no real purpose of being here. But quite a few of my friends are here, I've already made more friends, thanks to and starting with Sophia, the thoroughly Anglicised Greco-Barbadian girl I met in Vienna. She's a medical student here in Nottingham, and I went out with her and I think 80 of her peers last night. The gents from the frisbee team are just as fun to be around as I recall, Juan, Giuliana, and Alexis are still the noble friends I remember them being. The air smells the same, the canal and its longboats still drifts idly along the southwestern side of town, from Beeston, past Dunkirk, and through Nottingham's city centre on its way to the Trent River. A doner kebab (Turkish version of a burrito or pita sandwich, made with lamb doner (sausage, essentially) still has that magical taste that only really fatty meat with garlic mayonnaise could provide. The streets I walked, the shops I frequented, the color of the grass and the scents on the air-- they're all what I remember of Nottingham. But still...something is missing...

I may go and participate at open mic night at the Happy Return, a pub in the village of Lenton, 15 or 20 minutes walk from here (my old residence), tomorrow night. I'll be sure and let y'all know how that turns out.

Cheers for now, from your favourite spectre...
jeffro