Body and Soul
The place where I live is not the place I call home. Home is where the heart is, that’s what they say. I left my heart and soul behind many moons ago. You can find it where I grew up. Crooked houses that used to stand straight hundred of years ago occupy my soul, cobblestone streets run through my veins. There I can still hear people from long ago walk along those streets, and knights passing on their horses. Longtime neighbors greet each other across the fence. This is home.
Now, I am thrown out of the Middle Ages into the Wild West. I exchanged brick walls for plywood walls. I miss the sense of old, the sense of generations before me.
A tall Douglas fir overshadows the place I live in. It is just beyond the reach – kept away by a fence. How I long to touch its bark and feel its history. Standing near it I look up to see where it ends but that too is out of reach. It makes me feel small and insignificant.
The house I live in now has no history and no character. It is the mirror image of the house across the street; placed at the end of a street, blocked by a gate. It is quiet at the end of the road but I do not feel at peace here. My cat, curled up on my lap, is my only comfort.
On the other side of the gate, I hear the water of a pond and squawking geese. At day squirrels and crows screech, telling my dog to get lost. The night brings out wild animals. Skunks leave their mark and force folks to stay inside. Raccoons, coyotes scurry by. Don’t they realize this is a tamed neighborhood?
This place, where neighbors are strangers, possesses only my body and mind. I yearn to be whole again…
