The Sweet Everlasting

"When you go back to those places, to moments you’ve held on to for so long, they’ll be clearer and simpler, like the pure truth. And then too, the older you get and the more you understand, you won’t exactly be the same person looking back, and simple things will change and get more complicated. I see myself out in that field. A boy without shoes, and with a cotton sack at his feet. A skinny boy wearing overalls he’s outgrown, so the pants reach halfway up his calves. A boy standing there like a weed, standing up straight under the sun. And when I see myself that way, it’s the same boy I’ve always known, and the boy I partly still am, even this old."