Fresh coffee and a cig on my parents’ porch. Marveling at the big sky, the mighty Atlantic, the salty autumn air. I can hear the Big Band music my dad’s playing in the bait shop behind the house, and organ music from the church on the corner.
A burst of laughter from a house down the block, one of the few with year-round residents here at the south end of the island. Other homes are closed up for the winter, leaving behind the hulking silhouettes of covered grills and a few lonely beach toys under patio tables.
My parents, now in their mid-seventies, have changed in the four years since I last saw them. I’ve missed personal evolutions and devolutions, and the political revolution I’m grateful they #resist. I’ve missed their smell, their hugs, their accents, their cooking.
I’ve changed, too. My hair is greyer. I’ve gained a few pounds, a second nationality, a third language. People, places and things that I’ve held as constants in my life in Europe have been altered almost beyond recognition, throwing me off my axis.
The dozens of photos in the hallway of my parents’ house span generations. There are graduations and birthdays and vacations and Sears portraits and moments that would have been forgotten if not for the camera’s eye.
In these photos I see the origins of my dimpled smile and my thick ankles. I see people who have died after long, epic lives, and I smile; others were taken from us suddenly, shockingly, and I flinch with guilt for not being here to bear witness to their passing. I miss them all.
I am the salty air and the old music and the reruns and the photos in the hallway. I am home.
