Homesickness

"Homesickness"


   I stared out the window, listening to the rough pops of rain hitting my ceiling. The tinkle of rain hitting tin, some part of my house I've never been able to find, reminds me of home. I may say to people, "Yes, I live over there, off some street that's a death trail on days just like this," but it's not really the truth. The for real truth, the one I hold deep in my heart and maybe in my mind is the source for all this darkness. Where I come from, where Scottish and Cajun clashed in some unholy, violent orgy, this is nothing. We have thirty seven different names for rain, but we just use the one you know. It's just easier that way. You may not get it, coming from a perspective of wind, dust and dryness that leaches energy right out of your soul, but we do. I can tell just what kind of rain my cousin is referring to, on those infrequent, crackling connections we make. It becomes part of you, despite any upbringing to the contrary. I should know, having felt my whole life like I was leaving there, only to come back to stay, someday. It's been over ten years since I left you, my dear, sweet bayou, with your mossy oak trees up to your ankles in water. With your french twang that hangs in the air with every human breath. With your magnolias, perhaps my favorite flower and plant, one that doesn't grow the same anywhere else. How I dream of sitting beneath your branches again, someday, listening to the rain whistling through the air, making everything moist, everything alive. It hurts me not to be with you, embracing a heritage that must be genetic to pull so strong, from such a great distance over land and through time. On days like this, with the rain pattering against the whole world, I remember you, through the heartbreak, through the homesickness.