Cathy and I just got back from our week at the Vermont College of Fine Arts Postgraduate Writers’ Conference in Burlington, VT. Last year, due to cancelled flights, we had no choice but to drive from our home near Columbus, Ohio, to Burlington. This year, we decided we’d do it again. On the way out, we spent the night in Syracuse and then went on to Burlington the next day. On the way back, though, we made the entire trip in one day. We took the ferry across Lake Champlain, navigated the winding roads through the Adirondack Mountains, hit the New York State Thruway, and bit by bit we came back to the flatlands of central Ohio. We made our re-entry to a different landscape and to everything that lies ahead of us as we move through the rest of August. We had a lawn to mow, a garden to tend, cats to welcome us, and a new pool to maintain.

Coming back to one’s life can be as welcoming as it can be challenging. For a week, we’d immersed ourselves in Vermont and the writers’ conference where I teach each August. It was, as always, a thrilling conference that was made more so by the fact that Cathy got to read from her memoir-in-progress at one of the participant readings. We left Vermont, weary but also exhilarated by the time we’d spent with good friends, the workshop I taught, and the air that still seemed clean even though Canadian wildfires led to air quality alerts and obscured views of Lake Champlain and the mountains to its west.

Coming home or returning to someone or someplace after a time away can be good fodder for our writing. If you’re working on a memoir, is there a return scene waiting to be written? What were its complications? If you’re writing fiction, is there such a scene that might provide the premise for the narrative. Someone comes home after time away, perhaps, or someone sees someone they haven’t seen in years. What draws someone to return to a place or to reunite with someone from the past? How might they feel one way about the return or the reunion and how might they also feel quite the opposite way? What surprises are awaiting them?

We see familiar places and people with fresh eyes after some time away. How can you make that pay off for your memoir, your novel, your story? Start a new scene, one you maybe didn’t even know you need to write. Keep your heart open for whatever surprises come your way. I hope this prompt leads you to discover something you didn’t know.