Going Home Again

Some say you can never go ‘back home.’ I say you can. I’m home. I spent twenty years in exile in Owatonna. It was of course self-imposed, but I didn’t see it that way, and of course I had all sorts of what I thought were good reasons at the time for staying in that podunk town, but it was never home for me. While I was there, mostly alone, I would dream at night of the years when I was young, working, going to the U of M, and hanging out with friends and Steve, whom, I would eventually marry. We had fun, for a while. We all mostly worked downtown, and at night we’d go out. We went to movies, dinners, and disco dancing.

The Nicollet Mall was as beautiful as it is now, lights lit in the trees at night. We spent our money on fun clothes and occasionally things like tuition. So, in my room in Owatonna, where my life consisted mostly of caring for my kids and having church lady friends who were pretty conservative, sometimes at night I’d dream that I was back in Minneapolis, and my friends and I were trying to decide where to go and sometimes we’d decide to go to David Fong’s in Bloomington. There’d be some moaning about “It’s so far out there.” But then someone would counter with,”Yeah, but let’s go!” And we’d all head out. This was about as far as my dream would go, we were going to go and it would be great. It was the closest I came to real fun.

A few months ago, I started talking with a woman who takes voice lessons before my daughter at MacPhail, we’ve become friends and she invited me to come to karaoke to hear her sing at David Fong’s. It seemed like a perfect storm of life convergence, the past, the present, my dream life all coming together, and so, even though it was a work night, even though I’d have to skip meditation class, I said, “Sure, I’ll try to be there.” This is not like me, I like to go to bed early and I don’t go to bars alone. But I did, and we had a blast. David Fong’s has literally not changed in 30 years. The karaoke scene in the bar was fun and homey. My new friend is very sweet and fun and she has a great voice. I’m learning to have fun all over again. I had a girl’s night out, at home, in Minneapolis. I’m happy to be here.