Homecomings and Shortcomings
As I’m sure you have noticed, I’ve been revisiting many aspects of my past, from childhood toys to discombobulated feelings of nostalgia. It’s been an impending movement on my part, brought about by a combination of catalysts that together are far more compelling than any of them alone. I have spent the last few months sorting through the remains of my previous lifestyle. Some of these childhood ashes are memorabilia I cannot bear to part with, while others are stories that come rushing back to me when I look at old pictures. I have little doubt that rummaging through these artifacts have conjured up my sudden trend of hindsight. Lest we forget I am poised on the brink of leaving my youth behind me and making my way into the adult world, as this natural transitional period has forced me to look behind me, towards my history, my upbringing, and my hometown.
Here I am, off in the world to explore every corner I can, and while I pen a word or two about my travels, I’ve yet to say much about my roots. It is a privilege to live in the same city for one’s entire life, if not the same house, and my complex relationship with my hometown undoubtedly springs from the incredible backlog of memories I have sharing the same backdrop: Houston, Texas. Parched and sun-baked, but surprisingly green, the city serves as the stage for so many of my highest and lowest moments. It is the arena in which I played and the world in which I learned all my firsts and many of my lasts. Although returning to my hometown, with its constant change and development (as larger hometowns tend to foster), is an experienced far removed from revisiting my memories of it, I will admit that the skyline is in my blood and the mere vibe of the place is enough to move me to defend its honour like a king’s knight. Perhaps it is to this fondness that I keep returning, regardless of how variant my encounters with the location are. I will always love my hometown, yes, but I will always feel the place I knew so well in my youth no longer exists.
Such is every man, woman, and child’s tragedy, the many losses incurred when youth is no longer an adequate title. There is of course more to the picture for me. My family was never one for scrapbooking, nor one much for family photos once my sister and I were old enough to protest. I, however, have always been a different story. Much like the crafty mother (or in my case, sister) who compiles photo albums and hoards ticket stubs, I have left behind a different image of my past. Ever since I was old enough to hold my grandmother’s video camera I shot little moving pictures of my life. Of course, I never thought much of them until recently, when I’ve been clearing them out. Years later these little snapshot moments of my life hold far greater meaning than they did back then, revealing tactile documentation of what is long gone: houses we have moved out of, friends that are no longer close, stories I once entertained. Without expressly aiming to, I find myself in possession of several years worth of my life immortalised in old VHC-cassette tapes.
I couldn’t very well let all this history and all these memories lay about gathering dust, now could I? While I have work far more recent (and indeed clips far less as well), it’s much harder work to edit something that carries the whispers of your personal past than it is to cut together the average movie. I am still not satisfied with the result, but I believe that in one way or another I have managed to capture the essence, the feel of my hometown in these few videos. Some you may have already seen — one chronicling our time in Galveston, a piece-meal snapshot of my freshman year at college, my days in Tokyo, the failures of my 8-year-old self’s epic film ideals — but none explain my feeling of homecoming as well as this one, begat from a feeling of intense longing, perhaps the first time I have truly missed my home in the first summer I have been completely absent. Enjoy, because maybe you too understand what means is to mourn a place that by all accounts is still around.
Hometown from Leigh Cooper on Vimeo