Home Again, Home Again

This morning I left home to go home. I just spent six days in my hometown, visiting people I love and soaking in the green and coolness of a Wisconsin summer. I felt like I was home, although thirteen years of living in Texas has made some of my inner Racine map foggy. I ate favorite foods, drove down to the lake to see the beach, the water, the lighthouse. I soaked in the plants, the architecture, the rabbits and robins. I enjoyed watching the rain pour down, and fluffy white clouds float through an outrageously blue sky. I marveled at the thousands of fireflies that lit up fields filled with growing cabbage and corn. Mostly, I hugged friends, talked and laughed with them, and then tried not to cry when I said goodbye to them (not altogether successfully, I might add). There is never enough time. I repaired a relationship that had been broken for thirty years. And sadly, one of the people I had meant to see passed away unexpectedly in her sleep yesterday. It makes the time I spent with my other friends all the more precious. With each connection and each loss, I become more and more likely to say I love you.