Going Home

When I was younger I realized the meaning of the phrase, "You can never go home". In other words, things continue to change even while you're away and will never truly be the same again. It saddened me greatly as a young adolescent to come to that realization because I considered my "home" to be a rather magical place.

This past week I traveled back to Maine and spent time with both my family and a the myriad of memories that I still have. I was assaulted with smells, sights and sounds, rushing the past to the very forefront of my mind; piles of Autumn leaves, cool breezes through the birch trees, my mother's apple dumplings, each triggering a flood of memories that were like old friends who have not changed at all.

All of this made me re-think my paradigm of never going home, and I came to the comforting realization that you never really leave.

Memorial Day

Today is Memorial Day in the United States, the day when this nation’s war dead are officially honored. For those around the world who are unfamiliar with how it is celebrated I offer this brief description.

I grew up in New England, the northeastern part of the United States punctuated with small, agrarian towns and deep traditions. Memorial Day for us always began with a parade down the center of our tiny town, the procession being lead by serious looking veterans of past wars carrying the national and state flags. The then-aged veterans were gleefully followed by all manner of celebratory vehicles; fire trucks, riding lawn mowers, and little red wagons pulled by happy parents. The high school band was usually present along with the Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts. The parade normally ended in the town cemetery where a brief service near the grave of one of the town’s fallen and accompanied by a lone trumpeter playing Taps off in the distance under the huge oak tree.

When I was younger, marching in the high school band it all seemed like a fun prelude to summer vacation. Now, almost thirty years on, after twenty years of military service around the world, the day takes on a different significance. The young faces of the scouts and band members and glowing, smiling, and carefree. To them the day more of a celebration of up-coming school vacation, a time for shorts, swimming pools and ice-cold soda. They can’t comprehend the meaning that it holds for those serious men carrying the flags at the front of the parade. Nor do they fathom that in less time than they realize that it may be them carrying our nation’s colors, or who’s grave the precession stops at to observe a moment of silence on this special day.

The Swaying Pines Of Youth

An old birdhouse stands in the Maine woods, not far from where I spent my youth.

I grew up in the woods of Maine. For those that have never visited Maine in the late Spring or Summer, it is an experience that you have to feel to truly understand.

I walked out of the Baghdad villa this morning and was met by a cool, dry breeze and bright sunshine. The birds were chirping away and the sky was a fantastic shade of deep blue. I closed my eyes for a moment and the experience rushed me back to my Maine youth, twenty-five years gone. It's amazing how the sound of morning birds, and a slightly chilly breeze can overcome temporal boundaries, and transport you back to the happy carefree moments of youth.

In the end, I smiled at the gift that the morning had provided me, knowing that the magic of growing up in Maine still existed inside of me. I've never been anyplace else that could compare, and for an unknown reason, I find great comfort in that.

Some Moments Are More Perfect Than Others

Jody Foster had a great line in her 1997 movie, "Contact". While being transported into the heavens she was awestruck by what she witnessed. Jody’s character muttered something to the effect, “They should have sent a poet instead of an astronomer”. That’s how I felt this past weekend in Maine.

My parents’ house in located on a small, wooded hilltop in rural Maine. One morning I sat out on the old brick patio working on a first cup of coffee, and took in the entire moment. The silver-leafed birch trees were swaying in the crisp morning breeze, silhouetted against a clear, unbelievably blue sky. It couldn’t have been anymore than 65 degrees outside and all I could hear was the sound of morning birds, the occasional wind chime hidden away in the forest, and the wind moving through the leaves. Perfect.