A symphony of wind, insects, and waves are serenading me with a "Welcome Home" song as I sit outside tonight. These things are important as most days they're the only reminders I have that I'm actually alive. When I close my eyes to take it all in I often wish they would sweep me away to wherever it is I'm actually supposed to be; someplace calm and happy that doesn't hurt, where my mind can be still.

Last week I observed that I have too many places I call "home" and not enough that feel like it. My life suddenly seemed so crushed and broken for no reason at all. Then I saw my dad sitting in the airport, smiling as we came down the escalator. I traced my mom in the front doorway waiting with open arms to hug children she hadn't seen in months. My brother came home and the first thing he said to me was that I looked taller, though everybody knows that's not true. The cat still lies on the back of the couch with one paw outstretched to ensure she's in contact with whoever is closest to her, and the dog continues to be the most excited ball of black fluff I have ever seen. In many ways it all slipped back into place.

Many, but not all.

Once or twice I parted an embrace wishing I had not been let go. Once or twice that loving arm around my shoulder reached so far inside of me it took every ounce of control to keep myself from crying. The last colored leaf left clinging to a November limb could scarcely comprehend the loneliness eating through me. The aching of the driest riverbed is no match for my thirst. It is a great mystery how one with so much could look upon it all and see nothing.

Coming home is always a shock to me, even when going through the motions of moving from one day to the next. I make no attempt to fool myself. I know part of the reason I work long hours at every opportunity is because I don't want to be here. I also know there is an element of running away to the traveling I have been doing as of late. It doesn't work, but I keep hoping maybe it will. It's no way to live, but I fail at finding another alternative.

I feel like everything I knew about my life prior to this exact moment never happened; like I made it all up. There is no certainty or reassurance in the past, no stability in the future. The characters have betrayed me and scattered, ripping away the blankets I had thrown over my body for protection. I lay here vulnerable and exposed, nervously frozen, staring into the blackness without even knowing what it is I'm looking for. All I know is that it's not here.

Captured At: 022

I wonder what color crayon the mind uses when it plays connect the dots between one thought and the next. Consciousness must be the best plane there is to trace on. Those infinite little circles are scattered everywhere, unnumbered, can be used as many times as desired, and absolutely anything can show itself when they're joined. It's no wonder a person can spend hours thinking and turning over ideas; there are so many possibilities...

Driving home from the cape this evening I was giving serious consideration to running. My away message would be changed to state I was out flirting with death, and off I would go. "Flirting with death? That's a little extreme, don't you think?" No, not really. Going out for the first run after an indeterminate period of dormancy is tough enough as it is. Throwing in sore muscles, a headache, and an empty stomach almost guaranteed I would collapse within the first half mile.

Empty stomach... I hadn't eaten anything all day. Not once. "What happens if you eat nothing," I recalled asking. "You starve." It's a truthful answer, but not one that followed the twist off the common phrase that had prompted the question in the first place.

"You are what you eat," they say. What would they think if they knew that at this very moment I'm dining on life?

Life cereal, that is. Straight out of the box because I lack a desire to exert the effort required to procure a container of milk. Generally it's sweet, yet I still get the occasional handful of cardboard crunch. Perhaps Quaker was actually on to something when they named these woven oat squares. Life is certainly supposed to be good, but it also runs the risk of going stale if you're not paying attention.

In the last two weeks the contents of the physical box have been reduced to crumbs. The metaphorical one, on the other hand, has long exceeded its "best before" date. I guess I could really use some new life...

Again, though. What if you eat nothing? They have plenty of pictures of the starving and eating disorder ridden to support the idea one would waste away, but is shrinking to a skeleton really equivalent to being nothing? Isn't what we are more than the surface area of our physical parts? A person can also suffer from starvation of inedible things. Love, affection, and human contact immediately spring from an answer pool teeming with emotional and spiritual nouns.

Let's play with the words a little. If you are what you eat, then one conclusion is that you eat what you are. Further following this line of thought, does that mean people who choose not to eat believe they're nothing? I would be willing to bet some of them do.

Time and disinterest prevent me from jumping to the next dot, which reads, "When you look good, you feel good". As silly as these joined specks seem, they have generated a much lighter post than would have been added otherwise.

"Bring back the bec that's more than just a little bit optimist!" I was told tonight.
" I think she ran off to a tropical island somewhere," I said. "The rest of me is terribly jealous."

I want to go back to days when I could smile in agreement with the idea that laughter and sunshine were all I needed to survive. Apparently I'm not the only one who liked that girl much better. I wish she'd come home.

Captured At:2307

The opening scene is always the same. A bright blue sky littered with vapor puffs fills the entire area of view. Slowly it turns down upon bright green hills, trees and old houses scattered across them. The blackness of a two lane road draws a bold boundary between equally deserted stretches of land that seem to continue infinitely. The music starts quietly as a tiny speck appears toward the lower left. Third-person sight turns to follow it, the sounds growing louder as it closes in from behind and finally enters the vehicle. The song, which today is Jimmy Buffett's "Great Heart", is now on full blast, and a girl sits behind the wheel proving that lack of talent should never stop anyone from expressing pure joy.

This is how they will begin telling the story of my life. The rest will be shown the very same way I experience it - in pieces. No object would be carelessly placed, and every glace would reveal some memory from the triumphant heroine - a wide-eyed princess skeptical of fairy tales, yet somehow certain every action she makes helps write a story destined to be told. It's a story of the simple. The real.

The truth of the matter is that life isn't about that grand adventure, that star-sent romance, or that huge chasm to be climbed from. It's the lives we touch, and those who reach inside of us when we believe there isn't a person walking the planet who can do it.

The day before I had a dream; a vision if you will. I can't bring back any images, but I know I was confused by what I saw. After the event I was watching took place I rhetorically asked, "Now what the heck does that mean?"

"Danger close to home."

No sooner were the words out than I woke up somewhere between slightly nervous and panicked as I lay in a dark pre-dawn room. I didn't know who had spoken. I didn't see them, and I had thought I was alone in the dream. It's the sort of statement that, if you let it, can change your entire life.

This doesn't concern me as I navigate the roads back to home. I'm still tracing that car through the countryside wondering where the camera would jump next. Figuring out who the message was for will have to wait until later.

Captured At:2152

With each passing minute I find there is a different way I could have written about my time away last weekend. Narrations are essentially non-existent and smaller details like the sweetness of homemade raspberry jam have been excluded entirely. Perhaps either one would have made for a better or more personal post, but I simply do not have the drive to rework everything tonight. The text below the line was composed somewhere between PIT and MCO and, as it stands, will simply have to do.

===
I have been back to New York over a handful of times since my parents left there in early 2000. Each Christmas we have followed the same roads up endless highways skirting cities and tracing topography from starlight to pale sunlight. Everything about the world at that time of year looks worn, yet possesses a frigid beauty that has touched me since I was a child. There's a solemn comfort in those frozen mountain roads I can still feel when I close my eyes.

This return would be different. I was alone, out of season, and had traded four well-loved wheels for a pair of wings. Earphones transmitting the latest song my head can't quite shake drowned out all other noise as I sat outside my departure gate at DCA surrounded by adults in business suits who all seemed to know each other. My legs bounced nervously out of time with the beat while my eyes darted between chairs, windows, and my unsuspecting flight mates. In just over an hour we would be touching down at ALB. I had no idea how it was going to feel.

Initially there was a greater sense of being back when looking upon the state than when setting my feet on it. My aerial view revealed that all is not dead in early November, which makes those most stubborn of leaves stand out even more. Had it always been this hilly, or had my years in the land of the flat warped my perspective? I traced around neighbourhood streets, identified the large black circles as swimming pools covered for the summer, and laughed to myself as I remembered my dad telling the story of when he first noticed ours had collapsed.

The image that stands out most sharply in my mind from those first minutes after the airport is of a vivid green lawn coated with sunny yellow leaves. I don't remember the house, just two bright colors reflecting one of the simplest, sweetest messages there is - "You're home". Knowledge of this fact overwhelmed every layer of me before finding escape through my eyes. Finally, after so much longer than I could ever begin to guess, I felt whole.

When I decided to make this trip I don't think I truly understood how much it meant to my family that I had chosen to do so. Dad's side gathered for dinner one day "in honor" of my being there. I met the first great-grandchild, who shocked everybody when she walked over to me shortly before leaving and raised her hands in the gesture that means she wants to be picked up. I had been chosen. In the south country I tore around the back roads in a minivan taking my cousins and their friends to play. The youngest seemed to light up when she saw me and, if my ears heard right, dubbed me "Rebecky" as we walked between house and car. I even got some snuggle time on the couch that night. Relatives or not, I watch children her age and the same thing always comes to mind - I wish they didn't have to grow up.

Talking with my grandparents remains priceless to me. I truly love being there when some dusty memory comes into the light and I can get a better glimpse of who they are. I watched a photo DVD that was done for my aunt's birthday realizing that in almost twenty-five years I know next nothing about her on a real level. In many ways I'm not sure we had ever seen each other as actual people before. I felt more affection from some of those I saw than I can recall getting at any other time in my life. "Everybody loves you," my grandmother said before I left. "You're very precious."

When I say I have been blessed with a wonderful family, I truly mean it. Restating that as I fly home tonight I find that, somehow, I feel even more love flowing from me in their direction than ever before.

There are, unfortunately, two sides to every story. I made a very reluctant walk to extend common courtesy toward the branch sawing itself off the family tree. I told my mother I will know for the rest of my life that the last words my uncle said to me were, "You're no more welcome here than they are". With timid sincerity I had nodded and offered my quiet response. "That's fine. You take care, okay?" I walked back down the lawn, a bitter "Nice knowing you" called out behind me. Looking up into the clear sky as I left all I could do was pray that something turns his heart from the anger and hatred raging in his eyes to cover whatever it is that has hurt him so deeply. None of us can do it.

Following an old tradition I snuck outside in my pajamas that night to spend some time on the front lawn alone with the mountains and the stars. They continue to sweep me away into that something bigger I always knew was with me even when there was little else I believed in. For as much as I have come to appreciate the company of others, I have experienced nothing that can match those solitary moments of me and the universe in harmonious peace. Although sometimes shadowed, I think that has always been the underlying desire for my life. I crave it like nothing else, and it almost physically hurts to walk away on the occasions it surrounds me.

We're somewhere over Daytona Beach as I round this out. Glancing through the window at the glowing dots scattered below I'm suddenly reminded of my approach to ORD. I couldn't believe how many lights there were, possibly because I had never landed in a major city at night. They seemed to stretch on forever with no room for darkness. That, however, is getting off topic. There's another story from New York I want to tell, but my wish is for it to stand on its own. The way I want to share it there's simply no other way. Tonight my words are done.

Captured At:2247

Recently my help was sought in answering a question that asked, "How would you describe your personality?" While assisting in the creation of a satisfactory response I observed how glad I was that the same was not being asked of me. What possible hundred and fifty word paragraph could I compose that would explain?

I suspect several of those who knew me in college would offer up, "You're bec," as if that were an adequate answer. For them, perhaps it would be, but for me it only leaves more questions. I'm still not entirely sure where that character came from, and I have even less understanding how she managed to take on a life of her own. My view also sets the distinction between her and a girl of the same name who uses the proper capitalization. "Bec" came from my mother, originating as an endearing nickname for her oldest child. When the case is dropped, all softness and love vaporizes leaving behind a shell many people believe they know.

This begs the question of who I actually am. At one point I was sure I knew. Then I went to college and saw things I had never realized were there. I rolled it in with what I had known before, but nobody ever believed the descriptions I gave of a me they never knew. I met somebody toward the end of that time who left me unable to question that several of the attributes I had dismissed earlier must also be bundled in. This leaves me with only one real answer.

I am a contradiction.

Although I have never tried, I would suspect that eighty percent of the words I could use would find an opposite in the same series of sentences. What dominates varies by day and circumstance. While my actions may not reflect my thoughts, I have more than enough proof to know the very worst still seeks the perfect moment to attack.

Sitting at lunch today I commented to my companion that I can remember a time when we were both very different people. They said they look in mirror and think they look old. I told them I just don't look at all.

In many respects I feel farther from who I wanted to be than ever before. I no longer feel happy or alive, and rarely do I feel content or hopeful. I used to find joy in doing whatever it took to lift other people up. Today I cannot even support my own weight. I busy myself to forget these things, but when the activity stops the visions sting my brain. Part of me left when you vanished. My attempts to call her back have failed because she was no more interested in remaining with me than you were. No matter how much she is needed here, I cannot force her to return. She must do it willingly. Sometimes I fear her decision has already been made. If so, then what?

Captured At:1843

I have just returned from an eleven and a half hour day at the cape and I'm about to do the only logical thing - post about work. Today's lesson is to be careful about the jokes you make because you never know how they're going to come back around.

There appears to be some procedure or rule that whenever one of the key links in the chain of command is absent their authority is given to somebody available at the next level of the hierarchy. Last week my division chief vanished and a Delegation of Authority (DOA) was sent out to let everyone know the other guy in the corner office would have all the power until he returned. That would have been fine if it weren't for one small detail - he wasn't going to be there on Friday. I knew this. I told a few other people this. Nobody seemed to believe me.

Friday morning the lead on my project walks into our office and tells me I'm in charge. He and two other guys start trying to convince me that they had unanimously decided I should have the job since our now absent leader had neglected to make the proper arrangements. I was directed to the division secretary. "She's getting ready to send out the email," they said. "Go talk to her."

For the first minute or two she played along, then stated she would never do that to me. I told her it almost seemed fitting they would put in the person who knew the least to get back at one who hadn't quite taken care of things before he left. She laughed, and somehow it was decided we should send a DOA just to him. This expanded to include the guys who had started harassing me about it earlier and the other woman in my office. I showed her how to BCC so they wouldn't realize it had only gone to the five of them, and we'd laugh as we watched them realize nobody else got the message and it was a fake. I then disappeared to HQ on an errand.

Jump ahead about two hours. I'm back and sitting in my supervisor's office when one of the five walks in to talk to him. I ignore the conversation until I catch the words, "Well ask her. She's in charge." Naturally my boss is utterly confused when he hears about the email, then decides it was intentionally not sent to him because of an earlier disagreement and asks for a copy. I try to explain things once the guy leaves, but it doesn't seem to matter. Shortly after he's down the hall demanding to know what the heck the secretary was doing putting me in charge. He told me he'd just be playing, but the message sure didn't come across that way.

By lunch time the usual group at the table were all asking me for the rest of the afternoon off. I tried to tell them I wasn't actually in charge and that it had all been a joke, but they said once the email went out that was it regardless of how few people saw it. Thank God nothing important came up that day or I really would have been sunk.

When I got in this morning I found a RE: waiting with my email that I still can't figure out. The original message had been sent by the other woman in my office, who hadn't been around that day to know what was going on.

"We need to put $X on the credit card," it read. "Rebecca approved it."

Captured At:2235

"Into the woods to find there's hope of getting through the journey"

Hometown back roads carry a special magic when traveled after years of absence. The mingling of past and present when the eyes fall on them again breeds a unique sense of foreign familiarity that leaves one feeling welcome, yet oddly out of place. It seemed the trees in every front yard arced just a little toward the street dangling leaves of golden oranges and yellows as a delicate canopy between earth and sky. A bright green marker placed poorly for locating from a distance appeared a full side street earlier than expected, resulting in a clumsy, unsignaled right turn. From there onward the drive was habit. One more right, a curve to the left, and... That was the problem, wasn't it? There had to be someplace to park without drawing attention to the tiny white vehicle soon to be left behind.

She paused a moment when the car came to rest in the paved lot of an apartment complex whose posted signs she was ignoring. There was no other alternative. The locks clicked into place as she walked away with the thin white cord of a pair of headphones stretching to her ears from an inner jacket pocket. Unchaperoned crossing of the road she approached had once been a rite of passage opening a greater piece of the world to anxious children on foot or bicycle. It had seemed so wide and busy back then that she was surprised to find three of her normal paces carried her through an immediate opening to the other side.

Green lawns lined with piles of browned leaves framed the quiet, waiting road stretched ahead of her. She had timed it well; many of the houses would be empty. A single car came toward her, pausing momentarily at the stop sign before turning away. In a bittersweet instant she recognized both passengers, but they gave no pause to inspect the figure walking in the opposite direction. A forgotten face, a dimming memory, a ghost invisible as the wind knotting her hair - she now knew this was what she had become.

Not even halfway down the road it came into view. Removal of fences, trees, and bushes had made the yard larger than she ever realized. This change also made the house look smaller, but she had to admit it was cute. She could see why her mother had liked it. A pair of black chairs and a matching table had been placed on the porch facing her direction. A scarecrow was posted near the only remaining tree in the front yard, and a sign below the mailbox displayed the names of the new owners with pride.

New? It was closing in on six years. She and her family had different homes and lives hundreds of miles away from this deserted little street, yet days earlier she had still fought tears when she told her grandparents of her last memory inside. She could see the two girls as one would have through the window of their upstairs room while her own choked words echoed inside her head. "And we just cried..."

Looking upon it now she felt nothing. She didn't even pause as she walked by. The memories still alternated their effects, but she had already said the only good-byes she could. This place was not the one she had come for.

Once made of dirt and stones, the short road she turned onto was now paved. She didn't notice. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead tracing what she could see of the bike trail. Grass growing across the entrance offered a sad sign that the children had gotten older and left nature to reclaim their well-worn path. She quickly found herself walking over a sea of yellow floating around trees bare from the autumn winds. Her course was dictated by patches of mud and standing water she had no interest in taking her chances with. It didn't look like anyone had been back there in years.

After a few minutes she stopped. The forest extended further ahead looking more like giant twigs stuck into the ground. All thought became lost somewhere between them as she started to cry. She climbed onto the large roots of the nearest tree with salty trails of water freezing to her face. Names of friends lost to age and change came to her mind. Some she had cried over before. Some she had never even taken through these woods. All she would never see again.

In that moment, for perhaps the first time ever, she realized she was finally crying for herself.

When the tears exhausted themselves the buds tucked into her ears were removed, and the song they had become familiar with was silenced. Each gust creaked the world around her and sent the faint sound of wind chimes drifting to her ears. She was frozen in place, somewhere between not wanting to move and not knowing how to. She looked around unsure what to do next. Why had she come? What was she looking for?

Somewhere in scanning the sky beyond the treetops she realized her family had been blessed in the gamble to leave. Despite the pain it had brought, she knew she was better off than she ever could have been if she had stayed. She thought of her job, where she was returning to that afternoon, and what she had learned. They were things this place could never have offered her; things beyond her most fabricated dreams. This knowledge overcame her with thankful curiosity. She didn't want to take what she had been given for granted, but she couldn't help wondering what incredible, unimaginable things were coming next. Something great was waiting.

She slid down from her perch and began retracing her steps back to the forgotten path. Thought transformed into a fondness for the cluster of homes she would soon enter once again. The sense of missing she had grown used to became aligned with hope as she continued reinforcing how thankful she was. One last time she paused and turned toward the trees behind her where a small child was dancing unseen between them.

"C'mon, Bec," she said softly. "It's time to go."

She waited a moment before turning away again and nodded slowly while looking at the ground. Even quieter she spoke one last time. "Yeah...it's time to go." After the footsteps resumed she never looked back.

There's something about this chill to the air and this crisp sky sprinkled with tiny lights that takes me home. I must be the only Floridian foolish enough to sit next to the beach on the coldest night in a year. The hands protruding from the puffy purple jacket I donned for protection reluctantly maneuver fingers stinging with pain as they're jumped from key to key. I'm torn between visions of a lonely mountain lawn, moonlight over a silent forest of barren trees, and driving the roads home from work my first winter out of college to a warm apartment waiting to love me. The waves, the chirp echoing from a sea of plants, the brilliance of the stars...these things never change for all of the wonder and heartache and smiles and grief around me. In each shiver tonight there's a memory. There's a small tear forming at the corner of each squinted eye. Each second that passes a slight warmth spreads from the center of my body reminding me there's comfort and peace in the consistency. Crazy as it sounds, numbing as it feels, even in this there is tremendous magic.

Captured At:1042