| Current mood: |  pleased |
| Current music: | Slow Down // The New Amsterdams |
Home is where the heart is
Hartford.
It's been too long since I've been back. But here I am. Sitting in the nicest room in the nicest hotel, looking out over the skyline. In the distance is the distinct marking of the division from Hartford to West Hartford. I remember, when I was little, my mom would forbide me, Billy, and Nick from going past that building. And we never did. We'd walk or skate or bike right up to the building, but we'd never go past it. It wasn't that I was scared of my mom finding out. I suppose it's because I respected my mother too much to dishonor such a request, one that now seems silly; almost foolish. The town expands tremendously after that building, and perhaps somewhere inside of us, all three of us were afraid of what may lay beyond Sterling Road. Hartford was bigger, there were more corners, more shadows, more people. None of us ever dared break my mother's rule, and I do pride myself on that. She knew what was best and so we listened. Even Bill, who at anytime could have spat that she wasn't his mother in her face. But he never once did. She was his mother, and he respected her as much as myself and Nick.
I can see some of West Hartford from here, new buildings and old, and memories blossom in my mind; baseball in the front yard with my step-dad and my brothers, nights around the dinner table with Nick on my right and Bill across from me, nights I spent curled up against my mom's side as all of us sat down to watch TV. The pillow fights with Nick and Bill, the real fights over the bathroom. I remember the boys who liked to come by on their way home from the comic book store, as if their threats to finally beat the crap out of me would be reinforced. They, I'm pleased to say, never seemed to muster up enough interest to want to, and after a while, forgot about me completely.
It was here, in my hometown, that I got my first guitar. Here, that I got my first skateboard and a taste of teenage rebellion that I swore would never leave me. I'd never be one of 'those' kids, the ones who did everything right and tried to appease their parents every second. No way. I'd be a skateboard rebel kid for life, there ain't nobody but me.
And then came the news; it was good-bye West Hartford, hello Boca Raton.
There was never a time since I've left that West Hartford hasn't been a part of me. Only it's seemed to fade away over the years, erode and crumble like some of the buildings that are still miracously standing.
I try to play in Hartford every tour. This is my home turf. This is where I began my life, began to grow into the person I was meant to be today. These kids here understand me like none other, because they know. They live it, every day, just like I did.
I'm excited to take the stage, honored even, every night that I do. But in Hartford, it's always something a little more special. Hartford is mine, and I'm Hartford's. Hartford is home, and it's nice to be back in the embrace of the city that built my foundation.
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