This picturesque scene, repeated throughout New England, does nothing but fill me with a sick, creepy feeling. My early Sundays were spent inside the squat stone walls of the Episcopal Church so the slender white towers of Methodists and Lutherans have no particular connotations for me other than a general sign that I'm back in the land of dread and loathing. I keep expecting to be over it, that I'll roll into town and feel sweetly nostalgic or at the very least, neutral, but my gut refuses to let go. No matter how pleasant my stay is, the old hate lingers.

The good thing about going back east, of course, is that it never fails to refresh my love for all things HOME, where I've got a cat and a couch and a few final days of sun.