It’s about chipping away. When you come into this world, you’re a block of unknown potential. Untouched and ready to be molded into whatever shape and size your ultimate destiny takes. And those lines and curves of your being come from experience, from wandering and discovering, on your own, just what you’re made of.

He sat two seats up from me. In seventh grade advanced algebra class, Tom Pearo was your typical late-1990s kid. A bowl cut atop his head, with Airwalk everything for attire, I first noticed him when he turned around to talk to Susan Seymour.

So, you’re Canadian?

Not quite, y’all. During my three years living here in Western North Carolina, I’ve lost count of the amount of times folks have asked me that question. They want to know where I’m from, how did I end up in Waynesville, and since when did I pick up a southern twang in my speech?

The blazing Knoxville sun was quickly falling to the west, heading further down the road to Memphis and points beyond. Rocketing down Interstate 40, I shot into The Marble City, merging onto Neyland Drive.

I just wanted to break 18 minutes. Taking a seat in Ms. Trudeau’s second period social studies class, all I had on my mind was the impending cross-country race that afternoon. I was in 11th grade, captain of the high school team, and poised to set another personal record on our home course once the dismissal bell rang. But, for now, it was cracking open our books and learning about American history in some sort of structured fashion.

It’s funny, isn’t it? When you cross paths with folks you haven’t seen in years, and yet you are all still on the same page, where it feels no time has past since your last rendezvous.

It’s a question I get a lot. “Why do you like Canton so much?”

With the cornfields as high as an elephant’s eye, apples just ripe for the pickin’ and the last of the August sunshine still warming our glorious souls, it’s also time to harvest the innumerable records that have recently hit shelves and eager ears, ready to strike a fire in your heart.

It was the line in the sand. During the summer of 2005, I left one existence and embraced another. In a three-month span, I weaved through tragedy, heartbreak, and foreign countries, all the while striking the depths of my soul as the epiphany of my fate revealed itself.

My eyes fluttered open and, for a moment, I didn’t know where I was.

The room was familiar. The sheets and blankets were the same. But I wasn’t. As I got out bed at my parent’s house, I realized it had been three years since I was living under this roof, and with one day until my return to Western North Carolina, it was still surreal to be here, and now, in my native Upstate New York.