I found the house out in Athens, GA while out in Chicago. It was through a Facebook page my sister was on, in where the girl was leaving for Summer break and needed someone to rent it out. I was quite nervous, because in my head I had created Athens as nothing more than a small southern town with small southern minds.. which is just not the case (but my fear and the past had manifested itself in such strange and imaginary ways that I could not even begin to process it).
When Dani and I had first talked on the phone I was incredibly wary until she told me she was from Vancouver.
“Oh Jesus you are from Canada. Thank god”, I said.
The house was off of Easy Street in an area called Normaltown. Dani and her husband Thor were so incredibly cool. While they were only here for a few weeks (before they left the entire house to myself) my time with them was incredible. There are memories of us late at night underneath the candlelight of their screened-in porch laughing and playing music with their friends…. and one memory in particular was the massive showering rainstorm that shot down through the southern sky into our town. Dani and I ran out in the rain screaming and laughing while the sorority beginner house across the street looked at us like we were insane.