I think back, and I know exactly where it started: a double wedding ring quilt that was sewn by my father's mother. I didn't know her well; let's just say there were severe family differences, but I was too young to be cognizant of that fact at the time. I just knew that I liked the quilt, and it kept me warm. When I look back through the eyes of adulthood, the eyes of someone who has now made a few quilts of her own, I know it was probably pieced out of clothing scraps, and the centers were either plain white cotton or unbleached muslin.

Coming home from my mother's wedding, with thoughts of Washington and Arkansas and Alabama mixing reluctantly in my head like oil and water, the thought hit me. Last Q standing.

I'd managed to find a close-enough relative to whom I could toss the question to with some degree of nonchalance, though I think I knew what the answer would be all along: "Yes, she's planning on changing her name after the wedding."

From Jeff's grandmother's surprise 80th birthday party this weekend, I present definitive photographic proof that Jeff was not hatched. The 'hatched' theory holds no water when you see how much the entire family resembles each other. Link goes to photoset, or click the photo below:

Six years, it's been. Six years and nine days to be exact, and I'm still here. I owe you a debt of thanks, those few of you who have kept wandering by, even when the muse packed up and flew to warmer climes every now and then. (These past few months have been another instance of that recurring problem, but it seems to be ending, as the urge to write has been returning as of late.)

I think it unlikely that I will post a public chronicle of my days spent in Arkansas, for reasons that are abundantly clear in the private entry posted directly before this one, but there is one story that I wanted to tell. It was not for what I did, but for what I chose not to do.The dead cross daily with the living in Tull; it is a place in which your memories and your past confront you even during the smallest of errands.

Truth is, I haven't let myself think about it much. Three hundred and eighty-five miles is nothing when compared to the scale of a planet, but it's a planet when compared to the scale of a life. While putting together my breakfast this morning I asked myself what the hell, exactly, I thought I was doing, planning on returning to the town of my birth. What do I hope to see? What do I hope to accomplish?

I'm not sure.