“But here’s the thing I’ve learned about leaving- you can’t really go back. I don’t know what to do with Cooley Ridge anymore, and Cooley Ridge doesn’t know what to do with me, either. The distance only increases with the years. Most times, if I tried to shift it back into focus... all I’d see was a caricature of it in my mind: a miniature town set up on entryway tables around the holidays, everything frozen in time.”
