Home.

It usually comes back with distant familiarities. The scent of the trees I used to walk to school by….the smell of the ocean…. or the familiar sites of alley ways and crowded breakfast joints.
It’s been nearly 4 years since we officially moved away from home. It was always a place that we could bounce back and forth between. Come back to relax. Home provided a respite with a familiar solidarity.
I was surprised to see how small that piece of the world actually seemed upon visiting it again. The football bleachers that were so grand and mighty were but a few rows of metal stacked next to each other. They didn’t come close to representing the fame and adrenaline of Friday night games but looked more like a small field with little significance.
The house I grew up in was still quaint and small, but not the home I knew.
There remained the consistency of the people. I witnessed the same church members working whole-heartedly in the kitchen for a potluck, or teachers teaching their classes. It’s as if years had only passed with the graying of hair but not the changing of they’re commitment. There’s a certain degree of security in the routine.
I drove back and forth visiting friends and seeing the faces of those who represented my past, my childhood and deep friendships. I took in the ocean which was as big as I’d remembered it and happily watched my girls splash about as I did at their age. To a child, everything is big. Larger than life…fun and exciting…. Although everything seems different to me now, I smiled as my daughter spoke from the back seat: “Momma! Look at the huge football field, have you been there before?”
You can’t go home again, no matter how hard you might try. It’s a bit saddening but there’s joy in knowing that home isn’t a place anymore – it’s my family.