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Lovely piece, Rosalynn. I like the way you blend your personal history with the themes of the books you've been reading.

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This is a really freighted question/area for me. I have a hometown that comes with caveats. We moved there when I was ten. It is a small New England town with families who still, after more than fifty years, view my family as relative newcomers. I "came of age" here and still go back to visit because so many of my people and history are there. Still, there are other places where I feel at home. I struggled with all of that here, in a brief thing I wrote after going home for my father's memorial service: https://elizabethmarro.substack.com/p/finding-the-parts-that-remain.

I am constantly struggling with a sense of dislocation and a longing for home. I don't know why.

My son had to move many times because of me -- we were always looking for a better rent situation but I tried to keep him in the same town and school whenever possible. I feel a lot of regret about this. If I had it to do over (there's that fantasy again), I'd stay put in Rockport, MA until he grew up. I have this probably misguided idea that he would have had a safe place where everyone knew him and never felt lacking because he had only me.

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I'm so glad you loved Tell Me How to Be!

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