it's just like...weird small towns with just the slightest vibe off about them, Sunday morning, yellowjackets, abandoned houses with the windows knocked out, the golden hour, floors have teeth, summer but only the part when you're outside in a farm field and the humidity is a little too oppressive but anything's better than the 8 months of basically winter, being in a barn for the first time, soft golden light and the way it falls on the wood floors, realizing life is simultaneously better than people make it out to be and also disgusting and unfair but that's fine, you don't think about it. always coming back to the way you were raised no matter what changes around you, and how different it is, pretending that the small town you grew up in hasn't changed and the old people you were closer friends with than people your own age are still there, still waiting, still living in the same houses, still there. forgiving it all as it comes back to you, for better or for worse. finding comfort in the filthy and disgusting and rotten because that's the closest to raw emotion and the dirty is just the reality of human existence. the 2nd half of preacher's daughter after ptolemaea ends, and the acceptance hits. understanding the small creatures that are "gross" or scary to others, picking up insects outside and staring off into the horizon as it expands, but never expanding enough to replace the way you looked at it years ago. walking outside just to watch the leaves fall and waiting till you're in your yard to take the first deep breath because you've been shut in for days. relating to preacher's daughter down to even the title and loving the responsibility that comes with it but always being mature for your age. old rustic farmhouse where all everyone does is complain about how everything breaks but you love it. you're not alone in that house at night but that's okay, it's peaceful, you coexist now. it's beautiful, and being grateful for every little thing, because the little things are the only things that ever counted. the last notes of Televangelism as it transforms into sun bleached flies. laying on your grandmother's floor and staining it with an uncrustable while a sewing kit full of dolls is sprawled around you and baseball plays on the vintage TV and you don't know what's coming in the next few years. antique shops and always asking older people lots of questions because they're wise and you're scared they don't feel seen enough. somewhere between the old life and the new one, even though the old one is decades away, and you've never truly learned to accept that life is different, being that it's not paused somewhere else, other bodies take up the space in your old house, other memories hang on the walls there. standing outside your old house and staring at the new porch furniture, despite everything, that's still your house and your footprints are still on the floor and there's still marks where you and your cousins drew on the walls and there's still a spot on the kitchen floor you kissed when you were 6 years old. Still being the same person, for better or for worse, forgiving it all as it comes back to you.