Can I go back home?

New England Seaside September 8 2009


As I breathe deeply of the soft and sultry air,
My skin and lungs recall the kiss of salt.
A white gull soars low above the houses
With their always peeling paint –
Houses dating back to early days,
To earthen paths and ox-drawn carts,
To farmers working mightily to
Stack the many granite stones into high walls.
I look out across the estuary to
Admire colored houses lined along the distant shore,
And feel that I’ve come home again.


Reflections:


The flight was calm. I remember Providence airport when it was a 30 foot by 30 foot waiting room with two doors opening directly to a tarmac apron. Planes taxied right up to the door, and passengers came down steps, opened the waiting room door, and came in, to be embraced by waiting loved ones. I would be met by my dad, who, upon picking up my suitcase laden with books, would exclaim, always: “What do you have in here – rocks??!!”

Every time I travel, I think of him and that question. My suitcases have not lightened in the intervening 45+ years! Today, Dad would have to wait in Baggage Claim, and the concourses, as at other airports, are hundreds of feet long, with many gates, pulsing with people rushing in both directions. I do not feel as if I am arriving in the same place. The world has changed! Yet when I emerge into the rose-tinged light, see the sandy soil and struggling trees and shrubs, hear the cry of gulls, and breathe the salt air, I know I have come home again.

Now, as I rejoice in sensing that I am attached to earth in this place as in no other, I am also realizing how time and life have swept me past the wedding I remember here a year ago with such poignant pleasure. I feel sad, knowing that this visit will show me how I have already let go joyful memories, how I have moved on away from that deep happiness of wedding my Bubbele, how my life has carried me on alone.


Sweeping forward September 8 2009


Such a strange sensation –
A long trip with no one waiting at the other end.
No one knows I came, or where I went.
I feel disconnected from this world.
I guess I’m seeking the impossible –
To find again a moment from the past replete with joy.
But that trip was then, and this one’s now.
Now – past joy appears in sepia – a keepsake memory.