Nostalgia [teddi]

I drove to that same building on a brisk fall evening. The mountains were glorious, standing high and proud against a sun-set sky. Oranges and reds decorated the grounds and underneath my feet were the crunching sounds of weak leaves. The air was clean and it was so quiet you could hear that strange sound that is really no sound at all; the ringing of silence. Every now and then, you could hear the call of geese. They sounded almost desperate, screeching and gasping. I swear, it's the saddest sound in the world.

Staring at that building I felt as Wordsworth must have when he wrote Tintern Abbey. It had been a “long and painful absence.” Yet I returned. I stood there, staring, with my hands in my jacket. A chill came over me as I remembered everything. Every moment of pleasure and sorrow. Every moment of feast and famine. The images were clear and vivid in my head; the feelings strong and rich in my heart. Loss would so easily wish for me to forget yet I couldn't. It was all very real.

When we sat on mexican blankets on the concrete, staring up at the stars. When we smoked cigars out the car window, driving down country roads with the windows down. When we took walks through the woods and shrieked at every mysterious sound. When we sat in summer grass and prayed for hurting friends. When we made a campfire and watched the flames dance as we warmed our feet and hands. When we sat on sanctuary floors with a sense of both reverence and terror. When we were simply together. Before that, before this, before life’s turbulent changing tides.

I hold those times close to me now. They are both my chapped soul and also the only balm that can soothe it. I remember always, I remember all; not because it was perfect, but simply because it was.

It was what it was.

It just was.

It was meaningful. It was worthwhile. It was familiar. It was habitual yet it became more. It became a family. A sense of belonging.

I entertain these thoughts but for a few minutes before I am filled with a strange mixture of bitterness and thankfulness. I walk back to my car and the chill bites my hands. I hear the geese once again, their call breaking the silence of the country. I watch them wander through the grasses, stare at me for but a moment and then take flight. It is time for them to depart. They are heading southward. They are off to find their new home.