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“Who is your Ella? That is to say, what do you love? What has meaning for you? What fills you with joy? […] I found her in songs that stirred those low, unknowable, unnameable parts of myself, and that upon listening granted a perfect moment in which I stood just as still as I could because someone else had given voice and melody to what I thought singular and secret.” Ugh, a good memoir in essays just hits where it hurts, and Places I Stopped on the Way Home is no exception. Meg Fee writes beautifully and vulnerably about her youth, her depression, her relationships, and more — all in the context of her relationship to home and the city she spent a decade of her life in. This felt like book that found me at the exact right time — I always marvel at that kind of book magic — and know that I’ll be reaching for this one for a reread in the near future. ID1: I’m holding up a paperback copy of Places I Stopped on the Way Home. There are trees and sky visible in the background. ID2: The same book, held open to the epigraph, which reads: “These are the days that must happen to you.” - Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road” via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/Cq8BWoeLVbo/