Returning To Familiar Waters

By TAD BARTIMUS

Why does a Canada Goose return annually to the same nest to hatch her goslings, we wonder? Or, why does a salmon swim up the river that spawned her to lay her own eggs, or a humpback whale voyage halfway across an ocean to birth her calf in waters where she was born?

Humans do the same thing. Just as wild creatures instinctively respond to their earliest imprinting, so do we. When sap rises in willow trees and chlorophyll suffuses winter-killed grass, I feel the pull of home ground. I want to smell budding lilacs, hunt wild morels in tangled woods and watch lengthening twilight settle onto a farm pond. The older I get, the more I feel a need to return to the loam valleys and corn-crowned hills where my life began.
The town itself is not the same -- neither am I -- but revisiting the familiar landscape strengthens memories and habits that I carry with me wherever I go. It takes just an hour or so back among "my people" for my voice to drop in decibel and pitch and pick up the rhythms of my Midwestern ancestors' flat accent.

Artifice acquired elsewhere falls away. My nervous tick and my pulse rate slow. This is not a place that tolerates obfuscating qualifiers or fancy adjectives. The no-nonsense waitress at the main street cafe, the stock boy at the grocery store and the mechanic at the farm co-op say what they mean and mean what they say. Character is judged by a handshake and a hard eye.
Folks here don't care where I've been or what I did when I was away. They're curious to know if my long-dead grandmother was that Russell girl who grew up two towns up the road, and whether my late father was that fella who flew fighter planes in North Africa in "the big war" (yes on both counts).

There are gravestones in the cemetery with my name on them. Family albums in other people's drawers contain my picture. The church where my parents were married and the hospital where I was born still stand. I pass an old man in a blue work shirt and striped overalls and realize that he knew me before I cut my first tooth. 

I always say I'm going back because I want to see the river, the old farm, the stone bird bath where I poked cat's-eye marbles in the grout. When I get there, I realize I go to be with the people. We pick up conversations as though I'd just walked in from another room. They ply me with home-canned pickles and liberal second helpings as I hear again stories I know by heart.

As I lay in listening to a distant train whistle and the croak of bullfrogs, I'm almost six years old again, tucked in under the eaves of an old house with a kitten under each arm. Just as I'm about to drift off to sleep in my friend's guest room, she tiptoes in with an extra quilt to whisper, "Good night, sleep tight."

Returning like the prodigal to this seminal place where I don't live anymore, nobody asks me why I left or why I'll leave again. The only thing that matters is that if I want to come back, I can, because I belong.

© 2002 The Women Syndicate
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© 2002 The Women Syndicate. The content on these pages is the property of The Women Syndicate and may not be used without express written permission. Contact friends@tadbartimus.com