Monday, May 7, 2007

You can go home again


My sponsor has been on a road trip for over a month. I call it Travels with B. because of the email documentation that I've received. The last email was about traveling back to the old home town. B. wrote to me: "I must say -- - it is quite consoling to express myself - feelings, and all -- at how overwhelmed I was when I crossed the bridge back into my 'home' territory! This part .....is still beautiful, and not terribly affected with too much progress. The sugar cane appears to be about a foot high now, and the memories just swept over me. I accidentally (on purpose) took a turn into .......... -- the last time I rode down that road was with my Dad (I was 15 or 16 I think) - to dig some swamp irises from a friend of his for the plantation where we lived."

I've gone back to my home town and home place many times since I left in 1978. There are times when it only seems like yesterday that I was running barefoot through the fields, sitting on the side porch listening to late night radio stations coming in from far away places, or catching lightning bugs and putting them in a jar. When I read a novel with a small town setting, my mind goes back to those times when things were definitely a lot simpler. I think about fishing with my dad, picking fresh corn and fresh strawberries from the garden, playing baseball on the front lawn, and riding my bike with my cousin.

I'm glad that on this day I can remember those good times and there were lots of them. I'm grateful today for being able to grow up where people knew their neighbors and knew me by name and knew who my parents were. I'm grateful for summers spent on the water and reading comic books at the local drugstore. I think about the daffodils that grew everywhere, even in the woods. Every time I hear the sounds of the night in the summer, I think about lying in my bed in my room upstairs and listening to the cicadas and the other insects of the night make their music. I didn't have a perfect childhood but at this moment I can look back and smile about what I had and it was pretty damn good.

When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood” Sam Ewing

6 comments:

  1. What a beautiful post today Syd, as I have been travelling back in time lately!
    Thanks for your sweet words on my blog today...much appreciated!
    Love and HUGS

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  2. Wow. Yes, I made the journey back to my childhood home back in 1998. I left there is 1966 - it was wonderful to go back and see how pretty it really was. I really doubt my memory after a while, but it was true.

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  3. I hear the screen door slamming and Vin Scully calling Dodger baseball...thanks Syd

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  4. I love stories about peoples' childhoods and home towns. I get vicarious nostalgia, which is excellent. Thanks for letting me borrow a bit of your past.

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  5. Syd,
    I found your blog through Pat's. I'm glad to be here..please add me. I have a lot of reading to catch up with. Thanks.

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  6. aahhhh..what a sweet post..I don't live far from where I grew up so it isn't ever from my memory.
    Nice post..hope B is safe on his travels..thanks for sharing~

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