{"id":1911,"date":"2026-06-14T11:29:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T11:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1911"},"modified":"2026-07-03T23:57:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T23:57:21","slug":"hometown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/?p=1911","title":{"rendered":"Hometown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Living in the same town 
wherein you grew up
provides ample opportunities 
for deja vu moments.

Because moments,
monumental or minute, 
unfold in the same spaces.

Connected by physicality
spaced over the decades.

The last time 
I felt the pull of the past, 
was when my work laptop died.

I dutifully drove to the spot 
on the map that proclaimed 
to be the \"FedEx store.\"

And yet,
when I park, 
an eerie sense of familiarity
overcomes me.

Of course. 
I've been here before.

I walk under the dated arches, 
Through the faux front columns
And recall, in bits and flashes.

I\u2019ve been in this spot
In this exact storefront.

In 1990, it's springtime.
I'm there \u2014<\/strong> 
here \u2014<\/strong> 
with my mother.

We are here with a third person,
our Japanese exchange student
and extended house guest.

We deliberately, quietly
reverently browsed 
the aisles of what was then
\"Beauty World,\"
a store which, 
a decade before Sephora
claimed to be the county\u2019s 
fanciest makeup store.

I recall to this moment
\u2014<\/strong>standing in the rain  
with a clunker Lenovo\u2014<\/strong>
the powdery fragrance of
face creams
potions 
Christian Dior 
Channel.

Our guest 
had cooed with delight
that spring day.

\u201cWhat \u2018a deal!\u2019\u201d 
She exclaimed, 
proud both
of her usage of 
American slang,
and her find of 
classic French parfum
at half the price 
it would fetch in Tokyo.

My mom, meanwhile
feigned comfort
while scanning disturbingly 
high-end pots and applicators.

Mom's eyebrows 
gave her away;
I could read in her arches:
Frivolous!
Inappropriate!
Inaccessible niceties.
Oh what luxuries.

She warily eyed 
a nearby display
with a Rockettes line of
gleaming white tubes.

Gold encircled Clarins
hand and nail treatment cream,
a brand I'd never heard of,
stood tall 
with pert red serif font
that foretold its importance.

\u201cNo price tags,\u201d 
She had whispered
ominously,
stooping down to me.
\u201cMust be expensive.\u201d

She risked pulling 
at her heart, and her wallet,
her unvarnished nails lingering on
a gold tube of Clarins lip rouge.

The attendant behind the counter
threw my mom a passing glance 
as she swept by to a regular patron,
as if to say,
\"You can't afford to know the price 
and you're not worth my time.\"

\u201cI\u2019ll keep my Revlon 'Cherries in the Snow,'\u201d
Mom mumbled, 
more to convince herself
than any bystanders.

I recall her stepping back, 
placing the case to the counter.

And now I cross the threshold 
of the old makeup shoppe, now FedEX
and I hand my bum equipment over the counter
and I sign on the invoice
and I ship off a new decade of memories 
in a flat pack box
as I turn on my heel
and exit another wormhole to personal history
the kind that open only 
in one's home town.

<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cHometown,\u201d a reminiscence of place over time, as memories of past and present intermingle. Written Sunday, June 14, based on a longer piece written 2022, poem 165 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, “Thank You!,” by Diana Ludwick (c) 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[1288,331],"class_list":["post-1911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2026-poetry-challenge","category-poems","tag-june","tag-sunday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1911"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1952,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions\/1952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dianaludwick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}