They Say You Can’t Go Home Again

I recently returned to Ajijic from a trip that saw me in the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. The front half of the trip was a family affair – there were eight of us total, and it was a whirlwind. Together, this cumbersome machine descended on Southeast Asia to visit another family member, based in Manila, whose son had recently turned two – a Big Deal by any estimation, but especially so when a full hemisphere separates one family unit from the rest.

When celebrations were over – gifts given, dinners eaten, aquariums visited – the group made a short hop to Vietnam. We spent a few days together on the tourist streets and beaches of Hoi An. We saw the lanterns, braved the touts, used an abundance of sunscreen. And then, just like that, the family trip was over. Everyone else headed home.

Only my daughter and I stayed on. From there, it was just the two of us moving through Da Nang, into Cambodia, and finally Bangkok. That smaller trip was the one I’d been waiting for. From 2018 to 2021, my wife and I had existed nomadically around Asia before making a temporary base in Vietnam. It was there that we rode out the COVID pandemic, and I can’t lie to you, dear reader – it was a fine place to do it. The opportunity to explore Vietnam without tourists is one I wouldn’t give up in a thousand lifetimes.

I wanted my daughter to experience it all – the food, the chaos, the beauty, the sadness. Not sadness in a cheap or voyeuristic sense, but the kind you can’t ignore when you realize entire generations here – many still alive – have lived through colonization, proxy wars, and genocide. It’s in the air; in the way people move forward while still carrying the weight. I wanted her to see that with her own eyes, to understand what life looks like when you step outside the mirrored bubble we’ve built for ourselves in the West. And yeah, that bubble includes Mexico. Those of us who’ve settled in immigrant enclaves like Ajijic move through life with reasonable assumptions of security: the language barrier’s not severe, governments shake but don’t topple, the shelves are well-stocked, fountains trickle in the yard. It’s comfortable, even when it seems rough, because we don’t carry that boogeyman in the back of the mind – that knowledge that a Pol Pot, or some other nightmare from history, could come back if the boat tips again.

Yes, I was affected by all that. But what changed me most when I lived there wasn’t just the history – it was the beauty, the culture, the way the place knocked me sideways and rearranged my insides. On this trip, I worried that I’d lost that sensitivity. That maybe I’d gotten too used to it, or too old, or too jaded to feel it again. I worried I’d look at the jungle, the monkeys, the motorbikes, the chaotic racket of it all and feel nothing but boredom. Or worse: annoyance. Maybe the place had been cheapened, smoothed over, Instagrammed into something unrecognizable. Maybe the wonder had slipped through my fingers, and this time I’d only see the mess.

As it turns out, I fell in love again, just like I was always supposed to. But I was left with a new feeling, too. I left feeling surer that I felt at home there – but also that I’d never again feel the same sense of wonder as I did the first time I set eyes on it. The beauty was still there – the same heat, the same unhinged traffic, the same yellow-lit nights in a quán nhậu. But the sensation of an explosive sensory delight had been changed in some way. It felt less like opening a surprise gift, and more like slipping on a favorite shoe: comfortable and reassuring.

They say you can never go home again. For a long time, I thought I knew what that meant: that as you move through life, the march of time renders the places you’ve loved, those mileposts on your journey, somehow obsolete. Like the deadened Bangor International Airport in Stephen King’s The Langoliers – cold and unwelcome. Drained of import. Made smaller by the march.

Recently, I met a gentleman at The Cocktail Bar. Over pinky-waving libations served in long-stemmed glasses – drinks befitting the erudite and brilliant humans we’d reveal ourselves to be – we traded stories of creation and endings. I told him about mine – albums recorded, short stories published, a novel drafted, even a musical performed. For a guy who started out scribbling half-meaningless notes, I’ve made work I’m proud of.

The gentleman, sensing his turn was nigh, went on to tell me about his own creative accomplishments – big ones, respectable ones – built up over decades more than I’ve been privileged to enjoy. And after we were done patting each other’s backs, I said:

“I don’t know what’s next.”

And he looked at me with eyes that said, “Neither do I.” He suggested the obvious: something bigger, shinier, more. MORE^TM.

I nodded and cleared my throat. There was comfort in his honesty – this man who had done so much, and lived so much, still sat with the same questions I had. But there was also a sting in it. If even he didn’t know, what hope did I have? Maybe the issue wasn’t MORE, in itself. Maybe it was what we mean by it.

The perennial answer, of course, when doing anything you like, is to do it again, but more of it. After all, it was so exciting the first time. But sometimes when you do a thing, repeating it in the same way just feels like another version of going home. And sometimes, it feels sideways and strange from the deep well you’d visited before. I think it’s because the self that once animated the thing is gone. What once felt vital can suddenly feel different when revisited. Whether it’s a process or a vocation or a physical place, it doesn’t seem the same anymore. Maybe the point was exactly what I’d felt on that trip with my daughter – that the next time won’t feel like the first time, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. It’s not bigger or smaller. It’s just clearer.

John Steinbeck, ever the old crank, once wrote, “You can’t go home again because home has ceased to exist except in the mothballs of memory.” He wasn’t wrong, but it’s too neat. Home doesn’t “disappear.” What vanishes is the version of you who first stood there, eyes wide open. When you try to revisit it, everything can be exactly where you left it. But it won’t be the same – because you aren’t.

I’ve felt that in smaller ways, too. As a musician back in my thirties, it felt electric to lug gear into dive bars and blast songs into dimly lit rooms – every stage seemed enormous, every crowd of seven seemed massive. Years later, in Ajijic, I tried to get that feeling back. I joined bands, got back onstage, turned it up. But the wonder wasn’t there. The stages were smaller now. The spark was dulled. The situation hadn’t changed. I had.

When they say, “You can’t go home again,” I think what they mean is that we’re always growing. We are literally and figuratively shedding skin, all the time. And when we try to go home again – to revisit a thing that is core to us, that’s a part of our universe – we feel a change. You arrive as someone new. With luck, even a little clearer. And part of that clarity is knowing that “more” doesn’t have to mean repetition with the expectation of the same thing, every time. “More” can mean seeing old ground with new eyes or stepping onto new ground altogether. And that’s the rub in “You can’t go home again.” It’s not the place that’s changed, even if, superficially, it is. What changes is us.

Matthew Chabe is a writer and musician originally from Bangor, Maine. His work has appeared in Backpacker, PopMatters.com, Appalachia Mountain Journal, The Coachella Review, and more. His short fiction was recently featured in Voices de la Luna’s “best of” fifteenth-anniversary retrospective. A former magazine editor, newspaper editor, and military journalist, he now records music as Sleeping Fits and is based in Mexico.