Jason Headley

Correction (Jan. 23, 2012: 10:40 a.m.): An earlier version of this story misidentified Jason Headley's first name in a quote by Mark Lynn Ferguson. The story has been updated. | Our corrections policy

In 1996, Jason Headley pulled out of his parents' driveway in the small town of Paden City, W.Va., pointed his gold 1989 Honda Accord west and drove across the Ohio River toward a new life in California.

"If California is half as good to me as West Virginia has been," he spoke through tears into a tape recorder he had on the front seat, "I'm going to be in pretty good shape."

California is where he pursued his dreams of becoming a writer and a filmmaker. But it is a love letter to the Mountain State that has touched the most readers. His essay "Dear West Virginia" recently appeared on a website run by a former Roanoker and has been read by more than 60,000 people, many of them who were alerted to the posting through Facebook. More than 350 comments (and counting) have been made to the post, which can be found on The Revivalist.

"It's funny that you write something so personal and it becomes universal," Headley said by phone from San Francisco.

The essay (which appears on this page) is part memoir, part explanation, as Headley, 38, describes his conflicted emotions about his home state.

"You see, I've never had a problem being from West Virginia. I just had some difficulty being in West Virginia."

"In the back of my mind, when I wrote it, I thought abandonment to a degree," Headley said. "Even knowing there might be a better place for you, it's hard to say goodbye to the only place you ever knew."

Mark Lynn Ferguson

He wrote the piece a few years ago for an anthology of West Virginia writers that was never published. Last October, the website The West Virginia Surf Report published the essay, where it was spotted by Mark Lynn Ferguson.

Ferguson, a graduate of William Fleming High School who lives and works for the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C., runs The Revivalist website, which is subtitled "Word from the Appalachian South," and he asked for permission to publish it.

The post was published on Jan. 8 and it set a record for the most views on the website. Then, it blew up on Facebook.

"In the first nine days, the essay was read 60,000 times, which is certainly more traffic than the site gets in a year," said Ferguson, who started The Revivalist in 2010. The site features ruminations on rural Southern life, social issues and culture, especially in the Appalachian region.

"It is about exactly what Jason is talking about," Ferguson said. "Falling in love with a place like you would with a person."

The response has kept Ferguson busy.

"I've been approving hundreds and hundreds of comments, and reading every one of them," Ferguson said. "Each one is so heartfelt. It's like this treasury of love notes to West Virginia."

Headley has written about West Virginia previously. His essay "State of Confusion" ran in Oxford American magazine. It described the problems of constantly explaining to people that West Virginia and Virginia are not the same state. (The essay name-checks Roanoke, although Headley has never been here.)

"I'm from West Virginia."

"Oh really? I have a cousin in Roanoke."

"That's in Virginia."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm from West Virginia. It's a different state."

"Really?"

"Yes."

His popular "Dear West Virginia" essay has garnered much attention, but will earn Headley the typical Internet publishing wage of zero dollars. He hopes it will lead people to discover his other work and stories.

"No monetary value, no parades," he said, "but it's just a nice surprise. It's heartwarming, really."

Headley's letter:

Dear West Virginia,

I suppose this has been a long time coming. Looking back, it must have seemed abrupt. Twenty-two years we spent together, then I up and left with no real explanation. I probably owed you more than that. So I'll try my best to explain it to you now.

We were perfect together at first, weren't we? As a boy, I couldn't have asked for a better playmate. Your hills and trees, your railroad tracks, rivers, and run-down factories. You could have killed me a dozen times, at least. I seemed to be asking for it. I was rough on you, but you gave as good as you got. My blood in your soil, your splinters and gravel under my skin. This is how we did it, becoming more and more of one another every single day.

I drew your initials in my notebooks in the sharp angles of the university logo. They weren't just letters. They were you. I wore blue and gold, but those weren't your only colors. You were green and white, too. Just like my Paden City Wildcats. You were orange and yellow and red, your hillsides alight with fire every autumn. You were the purple of the Ohio River, the sun's last rays drawn deep. You were black, a night sky as endless as my imagination.

You were everything to me. My mom and my dad. My brother and my grandparents. My home and my school. All of my very first firsts. It was perfect while it lasted.

I wish I could tell you when things changed. That I could point to one moment. Maybe the first time I saw the ocean, standing there with my pant legs hiked to my knees, staring at the end of the earth. Maybe it was something I saw on television: a bionic man, a talking car, a chimpanzee sidekick, a girl in her underwear. Maybe it was the books, one of the stories that seemed so wild and strange and far beyond anything I could ever imagine happening while surrounded by the steadfastness of you.

That might be part of it. I knew, as sure as I knew anything, that you were never going to change. You'd spent lifetimes building mountains from flat, solid ground. You'd grown forests, had them taken from you, and grown them again. You were strong, stalwart, and set in the ways that worked for you. But I slowly began to realize they wouldn't work for me.

I can't actually think of a time beyond boyhood when I thought I was going to stay. It's strange. Ungrateful, I suppose. You were the only thing I knew and somehow you weren't enough. But my interests and ambitions grew beyond any realistic expectations. Far beyond the reach of your panhandles. And I suppose that changes a relationship forever.

The question is, did I begin to stand out because I knew I was going to leave? Or did I know I was going to leave because I was beginning to stand out? I fished your streams, but with little frequency and even less success. Friends and family stalked your forests for hours in the hope of bringing home deer, quail, squirrel. The interest never took with me. But there were bigger things. Ideals I didn't recognize, some old-fashioned, some simply old. Disagreement with common-held beliefs. Those I saw as wrong-headed, and those I knew were just plain wrong. All of that combined to leave me somewhere in between. There, but not.

I know your state bird, your state flower, your state tree, your state animal. I know your state fish, for crying out loud. Every fiber of my being was forged, formed, and intricately woven by the experience of growing up with you: my basic values, my ingrained suspicions, my belief that good things can always happen to you, but don't hold your breath.

You see, I've never had a problem being from West Virginia. I just had some difficulty being in West Virginia.

Still, now, the places we knew together are like songs to me. Just the names bring a flood of memories: Dolly Sods, Canaan Valley, Oil Ridge, Buck Run, Bickles Knob. And then the places that had no real title: the rope swing on the north end of town, the outfield of the far baseball diamond, the attic of my best friend's house, and, of course, the few square feet of my bedroom. I papered those walls with dreams. That town. I sought your best places and poured endless meaning into some of your most ordinary corners. I did all of this, day after day, for over eight thousand days. And then, one day, it was time to go.

You probably didn't see it, because my back was to you as I drove, but I cried when I left. And not just because I was in Kentucky. I cried because I missed you already. I cried because I'd never been away from you for longer than two weeks. I cried because I was afraid. Because if I wasn't a West Virginian, then what was I?

I had a tape recorder on the front seat to capture thoughts as I drove, alone, toward a new life. This is what I said as I left you behind: "If California is half as good to me as West Virginia has been, I'm going to be in pretty good shape."

And I was right. But a dozen years here has taught me just how wrong I was about something else. I never stopped being a West Virginian. There are some things that can't be undone. Not by all the gods in all the heavens. Geography be damned.

The other day someone wrote to me and said, "I'll be coming to your state next week." And I thought, "I wonder why he's going to West Virginia?" He wasn't. He was coming to California. But I still, in my marrow, think of you as "my state." I only hope you still think of me as your son.

I have grandparents and great-grandparents buried in your ground. I have family living in the curves of your hills. I have pieces of me scattered all across your land. And I have the best parts of you locked here in my heart.

Maybe that's not enough. Maybe all these words can never explain away what I did. Maybe abandonment is too great a sin to be absolved. Maybe. But I like to think not.

I like to think all your countless years have given you unbridled understanding, the likes of which I'll never understand. That on a cold autumn night when the air smells like burning leaves and small town football, you miss me a little, too. I like to think that when I come home, you're as happy to see me as I am you. And that the few days we get to spend together each year are like a gift, a time machine. Proof that old friends never fade.

That's what I like to think.

Forever yours,

Jason