The 1st of May- A Homecoming

Sometimes there is a sense that some of these posts seem to come from a manic depressive.
It's really just me and there are good days and bad...

I guess I thought that I could bluff my way through life so much more easily. When I was in High School, I thought, "okay, first graduate, somehow get through college, you'll meet someone probably around your 3rd year, date, get engaged in your twenties while making headway at the perfect job, get married and then have children in your mid to late twenties."

It all seemed so do-able and normal. I had no doubts....
Then life really began to happen...it never goes the way that you plan. If you are reading this and really love your children, you'll tell them that. Take their face in your hands, look them in the eye and make sure that they 'get it'.

I had a really watershed day today. It was such a beautiful and perfect day. The ones where the azure sky seems to go on forever in limitless splendor. It was warm with cool breezes and zero humidity, which means a lot in a place like Florida.

I couldn't have stayed inside if my life depended on it. So I grabbed a sandwich and a drink and I made my way to my special spot at a nearby lake. I lunched with egret and heron, mallard and Muscovy ducks for companions. I watched in wonder as an osprey flew low over the tree island in the center of the pond, laughed at the quacking mallards all swimming in formation behind one that appeared to be the line leader, shuddered a bit at the Muscovy who don't quack but hiss instead to announce their presence. One seemed particularly put out that I didn't share my sandwich and stalked away hissing epithets that probably didn't put me in all that good a light. Dragonflies skimmed the surface of the swamp as I edged closer trying to see if I could spot the crabby old alligator who inhabits this small pond. It always amuses me that the HOA in their wisdom have erected a red painted sign that reads 'WARNING- ALLIGATOR IN POND'. I think they do it for the Northerners that move here and then wonder why their dogs that they let off the leashes suddenly disappear. Any Floridian knows that if you have a body of water, be it a swimming pool, retention pond, or full-fledged spring fed lake, at some time or other an alligator is probably going to take up residence as its God-given right.

Grasping the nettle still further, I moved out onto a concrete slab that juts out onto the edge of land that leads to the marshy beach in front of the lake. It's set in just such a way that you can sit on one part that's higher up and then spread your legs out comfortably over the end. Picture a pool side lounge made of concrete and you'd just about have it.

You see, this really is my favorite place in the world; I cannot even recount all of the times that I have gone to this lakeside retreat to plan, celebrate, ruminate, mourn, cry and marvel. There have been times when I wandered down in the early hours of morning to watch the sunrise and times when I have gone there to try and catch the sight of shooting stars, moonlight eclipses...it's the wonder and romance of the place that captures me.

I've shared this spot with only one other person and seven years ago he and I sat on that concrete slab and planned the rest of our lives together. We sat curled up, one leaning against the other, arms entwined, desperate for the touch, the scent, the feel of the other. I remember being so happy that my heart ached. I was so certain that this was the way it would always be.

After the break-up, when my dreams were shattered, I would occasionally go back to the lake but never in the same way. I shunned the concrete slab, choosing to sit on a bench or a picnic table.

Then today, the allure of the lake called, the perfection of the day...I realized that I didn't want to hide in the shade on the bench, I wanted to be out on that slab, basking in the sun, reveling in the wildness of the wind.  So I took tentative steps, then faster and faster and I reached it stretching out in the sun. For the first time in so many years.  I felt whole again, restored, renewed.
Even the clothes I wore seemed part of it, not dressing to please anyone but myself, my favorite faded blue jeans, blue and white striped tee, black leather sandals, my Seiko watch with the blue dial that my father gave me for Christmas, the aquamarine and silver ring my mother and I found in a junk shop, restored and gleaming on my finger, all of this, all of it will live in my memory as the day that I came back home.

I sit here now with a slightly sunburned nose and face, but I can still feel the warmth on my skin and the wind in my hair as I rejoiced in my homecoming on the most perfect of days.