HOME

A revelation came during my second spoonful of Thai Curry Soup, and no it wasn’t a glass of water.   I was talking to my home girl Lara during our break from language class, when the subject of missing home came up.  We are both natives of islands; she of Tasmania, I from Long Island.  As with all natives of islands, there is an innate need to be by the water.  The ocean air makes us complete. My youth was spent swimming in the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean. Years of my life were spent body surfing, and getting sunburned.  Eating Frozen Fruit Bars, and reading on my back on a beach towel. The beach was my second home, and my greatest memories were born there.  While waiting for the slow ass waitress to give us the check, Lara began telling me how much she missed the beach and her own Tasmanian Sea. I concurred. She then stated how hard it would be too NOT live next to the ocean in her future life. I agreed, but wait! I AM, right now, living nowhere near the sea in my future life. Well I suppose the Meine, Rhein, and the shitty brown Nitter could be considered bodies of water, but my life blood the ocean, is so far away.  And then it occurred to me; my whole life I had the same notion. That I would never live but within a stone throw of the sea, and now here I am. Living in a land locked city in Northern Europe. What are the odds? How in the hell? Anxiety began to rage inside me like an American Idol Finalist.  Why was this factor not part of the plan? How could I have possibly over looked something so obviously important? By the time I swallowed my third spoonful of the fiery broth, a calm began to cascade over me, and no it wasn’t the sweat running down my back from the thai chilli peppers. A profound, simple thought sprouted in my mind and began to take root; It’s the people that made the beach so great. It was my family that made the sea what it was.  When I look at pictures of the ocean and wax poetic, I’m missing more the moments that I shared with them. Without those loved ones, the sea would just be another place.  Home is where good people are. It is comprised of all the smiles, tears, screams, and hugs that are found within your days and nights.  It is within the eyes of those sitting across from you and the family that you leave everything you’ve come to know behind for. As I sat there with Lara, and laughed my lunch away, that fact was never more evident.