Much of what I’m writing these days is about revisiting old places, spaces, narratives, and experiences. Some days it feels like visiting an old friend; other days, like stepping into a bad dream. Through writing about both the light and the dark, I have awakened new joys, and put to sleep some of the demons of my childhood.

It would be only natural that I would revisit my more recent past, a past where Seth & Alyssa Buchanan, Greg Wallace, and Katherine Middlebrook spent hours and hours with me. They were the characters in my first novel, Out of Breath, a psychological fiction novel about addiction, the surf culture, recovery, child loss, compassion fatigue, forgiveness, and redemption.

In just a few days, I will be in England, a place that holds a piece of my heart, and holds a vault of life-changing moments.

I spent only 10 weeks there in the summer of 1985, and turned 18 halfway through my “study” abroad. Everything I learned in the classroom there has vanished from my memory; everything I learned outside those rooms, remains.

You know the proverbial saying, “If walls could talk…”

On a breezy spring day last week, I walked along East Cliff Drive, another gorgeous stretch along the Pacific Coast. I marveled at the number of surfers catching wave after wave. The poppies dotting the cliffs burst through the aged wooden fence, their orange blossoms like tiny flames. People waved, smiled, and greeted one another. “What a day!” Indeed, what a day.

It took me thirty-two years, but I am back. Home, and yet, not home.

There is something surreal about moving back to one’s hometown. The mind locks in moments, experiences, feelings, images, & scents that are somewhere in the brain, yet not accessible at all times. It takes a certain key to unlock them.

Narrative, according to Merriam-Webster’s definition, is the representation in art of an event or story. The representation can be expressed through song, poetry, dance, paint, or in my case, a novel.