To visit a hometown is to walk with ghosts. To look at streets and see what used to be. To peer in windows and imagine life on the other side of time.

A church, a house, a park, a store.

And here, a school. My first. Here in this hallway we waited for a drink at the fountain on the first warm days of May. We lit the Advent candle in December. We scuttled in with our new penny loafers and pencils and school bags the first week of September.

All so long ago now as to have been a dream. But it wasn’t a dream. I have the evidence right here.