I AM Home

Alachua General Hospital where Megan came into the world is no longer there. :( And that is just ONE of the things gone missing in my HOME memories.
But the Williamson's who own Williamson's Grocery in Melrose are STILL there and THEY RECOGNIZED ME when I walked in!!! Williamson's said they were just talking the other day about when Mom had left Preston there for like 20 minutes before realizing she had left him and came back. I have no memory of that...but she had the names right, so?
My elementary school has a mascot now...The Mustang's...they've put a horse on the front of the gym. The playground is in the same place...I wonder if the kids who go there now hunt for toads under the cemcnt slab as you go in the side steps, or if they fill their pockets with rolly polly's to let out on the desk when things get bored? Or if they still do the Presidential Fitness award that I could never earn cuz of those darn pull ups?
The cemtery was peaceful and the hum of all the insects was a heart swelling symphony to me. The water in the BAY is SO WARM...but someone has gated the public beach and taken down the dock---there are a few benches higher up on the beach. So I just waded at the boat ramp and wished for a canoe and Linda Schank to help paddle the back like old times. Not a soul was in the water or on the water. Like out of respect they cleared it for me...not knowing that what I really wanted was it to be FILLED with catamaran's and skiers and screams...
The moss, the abundant road kill, the buzzards, the overpass road change on the way to Melrose, the pecan trees, the smell of the humidity, the people and places that run through my mind as I approach certain streets....all ignite my funky feelings--a sense of some other time I can't quite unite with the ME now . I feel displaced. Like I belong, but like I never belonged, like I was somehow in the wrong place then and maybe now. Weird.
I am so glad to be alone. I wonder that there is something wrong with me that I have found such RELIEF and PEACE in the aloneness. Particularly now when I am taking such delight in just BEING according to the whim of the moment with no one else's needs or desires to influence the BEING. I have played Miranda Lambert's HOUSE THAT BUILT ME again and again like a lovesick teenager and still the words do not tire me. And Blake Shelton's I WANNA GO HOME. I am just crying and laughing, missing, and singing/screaming with the radio and reading until 2am and eating HOME food. Fried and BBQ. The thunderstorms are heaven sent.
I am sitting here working on a contract that can't wait for my return and the rain is here. I want to snuggle on the bed and read like earlier days....and I will in a bit.
I exercised INSIDE on the treadmill and my shirt was TOTALLY soaked through. Gross but reminding.
Beach tomorrow. Wondering what I did to deserve such a visit and want to make sure I do it again.