I can smell it before I ever see it. It has been 15 years but it is as if not a day and yet it is forever and a day. The light is fading and yet I feel a desperate need to see it again. We make our way down the road and the local traffic is thick. I am crazy- in a sort of panic to get there before the sun sinks into its depth.
Before we can even park I slide out of the passenger seat and us girls run for the sand. It is cool and January but I pull off my shoes and run for it. There it is the sun sinking but my feet are enveloped by the coolness and the salty breeze is in my hair, I am home. Tears come unbidden – what a fool I am- but it is a homecoming an embrace- a welcome home, I wonder- how I ever left… even more, how will I let it go again?
I long for home, not the place I now call home but my childhood home. The place of laughter and friends, my mom and my dad. If only I could walk the short distance home and walk in the door. If only I could hear their voices and throw my arms around them. I long for their embrace but they are gone.
