Maybe it's just my brain flipping out over the clean oxygen, but something magical always happens to me whenever I go home after a long time away. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing my family, my oldest friends, my favorite neighborhood haunts, and the dog. But I'm also looking forward to taking a long walk alone around the place, just to reacquaint myself with myself.
This is usually done by any combination of the following: looking for the kinds of leaves and seeds and rocks I played with as a kid, crossing the gully bridge to the high school campus, visiting the abandoned pond behind the Grade Two classrooms, standing under any tree in the ballpark, taking the pine-needle-covered path to the Clubhouse, and/or sitting on a half-buried boulder in the backyard of an empty house, just on the edge of the eight fairway.
At some point in the middle of all this, I can expect to be blindsided (every time) by the general feeling that all is well, my life has a purpose, and even if it doesn't, all shall still be well. If I'm feeling particularly low at that moment, some crying may be involved. If I'm especially lucky, it happens at that odd hour in late-mid-afternoon when the sun hangs an golden veil over everything, and walking feels like a swimmy dream, or a Florence + the Machine song.
Possibly this one (thanks for the share, Meg).
It's like Adam Young having one last perfect summer day in Lower Tadfield, or perhaps Ruth Belville going to Greenwich just to set her watch.
I can already feel it in my ribcage; this is going to be the best time.
Enjoy your short break, Kat. I miss home, too.
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