Where I'm Home

Every time I return it's like I never left. All my favourite shops on quiet streets, all my favourite places to climb in the gardens have been waiting. Everyone is going about their duties just as when I left. It seems as if time stops when I'm away. The sky becomes bright on my return, welcoming me with the warm sun.

I visit those shops on the tiny streets. I pass faces with a kind smile. I gaze at the mountains for hours and it feels like mere moments. The more time I spend there the more I fall in love. I fit there, belong there. I feel home there where I've never felt it before. Maybe it's all the distance I've travelled to get there, but my restless ways seem to deminish the moment we arrive.

They ask me when I'm coming back. They want to hear how much I miss them. They beg to hear how homesick I am, but I am home, mother. I am home, sister. I've never felt so free and, if only for a short while, time slides away. There is only me and the mountains and my thoughts.

But thousands of miles from my family, friends, and my job, my happiness is timed on a stop watch. T-minus fifty-six hours until reality.

So I leave those hippies and their cowboys, so I leave those tiny shops and pleasant streets, so I leave those amazing mountains that make me feel so small. As we head toward the state line, the sky turns dark, as if the sun shone only for me, and the rain begins to fall. The weather mocks the way I feel, but I remind myself that time stops while I'm gone.