imst

today i went for a walk through my old hunting grounds. and play grounds. and through old memories. or new memories, new stories i had just been told over the last days.

often there are only nuances between beautiful and ugly, in tyrolean between schian or schiach, swap out the last letters - that’s the difference. or maybe it isn’t, they exist together. schian and schiach.

beauty lies in the contrasts. beauty and ugliness exist together, both are part of the fabric of life, both are part of us.

and part of imst, my hometown. imst hasn’t been conventionally beautiful, at least not in my lifetime.

the small centre has good bones, but they're laid bare. it feels quieter than it should. most of the shops have disappeared. cafés come and go. betting shops and barbers sit between empty storefronts.

it's hard not to wonder what the town centre could have become, had life not gradually drifted elsewhere. elsewhere means the valley floor. retail, warehouses, supermarkets and industrial estates stretch towards the inn valley autobahn, following convenience instead of character.

it's practical. prosperous, even. but only if you have a car. meanwhile the old town feels increasingly abandoned, as though history stayed behind while everything else moved on.

then, without ever leaving town, you find the hidden paths, the deep cuts in the landscape where rivers have carved their way through the rock. the same water feeds the town's many fountains. twenty minutes later you're standing in forest, listening only to birdsong and insects buzzing.

you notice the tree you used to climb, the one where you sat for hours imagining the life you'd one day have. you pass places that once meant something to you. your grandparents' house. the apartment building where you grew up on ninety squaremeters as one of many children. the place where your parents' house once stood, where you spent the years that shaped many parts of you. the school you walked to every day for eight years. of course, unless it was the weekend, school holidays, or one of those days when pool (billiard or the water) seemed more important than class.

returning now, usually once a year, though more often lately, i find myself seeing both versions of the town at once. the place you escaped or almost fled from and the place that shaped you. the beauty you overlooked. the parts of the town that mirror the parts of yourself you'd rather not notice.

despite everything, imst still feels beautifully, imperfectly familiar.