This past weekend was the first time I’d been home during the autumn in probably 20 years. I’d be lying to you if I tried to play it off as if driving down old familiar roads with the leaves changing, even on a rain swept day, didn’t find the nostalgia hitting hard. It was mostly memories of fall long ago – a time and place so different from today that it almost feels like something from a fever dream. 

The combination of the smells and colors of fall bought on instant flashes of core memory… the lion’s share of which featured long trips on the band bus and friends I thought of then as closer than family. The memories were so thick I could damn near touch them. 

Of course, it’s not this time of year for me if any trip down memory lane doesn’t come along with a touch of melancholy. I couldn’t resist dipping my toe into thoughts of how much time has changed it all – the priorities, the people, and how important they are beyond treasured in memory. Some, fortunately, have hung in there for the long haul. That’s fortunate. Who else would sit around over lunch and listen to the same old stories about the olden days?

The weekend was anything but restful. It feels distinctly like I skipped the part of the week where I usually put my feet up and recover… like somehow we bleed directly from Thursday into Monday without any intervening time. I don’t regret it for a moment, but I’ll be high key happy to get through the next four days and then have a proper rest.

I’m glad to be back into the routine… but damned if the draw of falling back into decades old habits wasn’t washing over me like some siren’s song. Even now I can feel that tide ebbing away, but in the moment it absolutely felt like I could have stepped back into a life I haven’t lived in a quarter of a century without so much as a stutter step. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.