Monday, August 21, 2006

bobby mcgee

I miss home. This is funny because it's the idea of home. The first hint of summer cooling down brings it on. It is:

The sound of geese around the lakes at Notre Dame, the (very light )smell of manure around the cornfields by the dam sites in Omaha. The smell of cool dew in the morning. The fall light, yellow grass, and sound of crunching gravel at a truck stop off I94 in Minnesota. The cold steely Lake Superior splashing against the backdrop of autumn trees.

So home is all these things, but it isn't what you think it is. I couldn't go back to my hometown, nor would I want to. Maybe someday - but that's not what missing home feels like. Home is an idea, and for me at least, nostalgia is pining for that idea. I have a hometown, I have people, I have 'roots'. But when I feel homesick it is for this amalgamation of moments in my life. All of them were embedded in larger situations that were not perfect. They were just contextual life. But take these little snapshots out, and you have a 'home' to miss as life notches one more summer into it's belt. Perhaps missing home is as much ackowledging our progress to the final exit as anything else.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

During the summer months... I do not really have access to the internet. I come back and hear that you left. I was not surprised....but I was sad. You were my favorite... you were the only person I felt could understand. I will miss you! Hope everthing turns out better.

Mike said...

Thank you Sam. That means a lot to me. Missing my friends is the hardest part. Good luck.