I am at home again where grass, trees, and all things green exist. It's surprising how much I actually missed nature. You don't realize its absence when you're surrounded by car exhaust, dirty skyscrapers, and cement. Coming home is interesting...it would have been more poignant and symbolic had I been reading Marilynne Robinson's Home, but I settled for Housekeeping instead (close enough). New England is unbearably beautiful sometimes in its sparseness, with the gray sea sandwhiched between the gray-bluish sky and the dull washed sand. After sunset, everything is pitch dark and I revelled in how appropriate Housekeeping suddenly became, while sitting nervously in a clacking train.
The first few days home are tense, and especially the first night. Dad picked me up from the train station as usual, waiting outside by his car. We exchanged perhaps ten sentences in total between the car ride, my dinner, washing dishes, and a quarter of game four of the Eastern Conference finals between the Magic and the Cavs. I would like to blame our reticence on fatigue, but the truth is that we are sadly at the other end of verbosity. My world is deeply solitary and strangely fanciful, and I've been away from home for too long to be comfortable. The magazines had been piled on my dresser since January, and it suddenly hit me that I couldn't remember Spring Break at home because I had forgone the 250 mile journey. My only memory of that time is filing taxes and writing a less than stellar scholarship essay.
I putter away most of today, with the highlights being making a dental appointment for myself and mom, cancelling my DSL subscription, and taking a walk around my neighborhood in the foggy twilight. Einstein, the yellow dog across the street, doesn't recognize me and barks shrilly when I try to leave my porch. The night is extremely damp and the misty tree tops could have been taken from Housekeeping's illustrated cover. At least it's warmer outside than in my house, where I slept with two blankets last night and nearly froze to death before adding another one at dawn (fairly ridiculous for the end of May). The stroll was fairly pleasant, although Einstein barks at me even though I take a shortcut across our property on my way home. Now I am waiting again while dad picks up mom from the airport, and for the cycle to begin again.
