Illinois

My foot is still swollen (I accidently pulverized an ant hill...fire ants...bad), but Sufjan Stevens is in my heart.

Trace Face and I departed for the ATL at around 3:30pm.
I had never been to the Fox before. Freaking Beautiful.

Adding to the beauty were the fluttering butterfly wings worn by Sufjan's band. He wore wings of a condor, moving slightly back and forth as he played....I kept waiting for the absurd moment when he would be lifted off of the stage to float above the crowd.

When he played Jacksonville, the screen behind his glowed with images of Metropolis, Illinois. Is it weird that that made me homesick? Is it weird that in a way that whole album made me long for the flatlands and long winters of Illinois?

I haven't been back in a while, not to my home. I missed my ten year class reunion this summer. Something seems lost. I found all of these pictures the other day of High School formals, Homecoming, Prom. Yes Tony. I even found the one of you and I sitting in the Christmas sleigh. I took the pictures with me to the Bottletree to show some friends. As I turned them up to the light, they became not memories, but glimpses into a forgotten time, like this other life, this other me. Illinois seems so far away. I find myself hearing the forlorn whispers and quiet remembrances of home within the climbing tones of Sufjan's songs.