Fall in Kentucky - Finding Home

Fall In Kentucky finding home.

I have fallen into a morning ritual filled with repetitive actions that make up my routine. I start by making sure both the boys are properly dressed (The things they allow kids to wear now!), hugged, kissed, and assured of my love as they head off to school. I either make the coffee or make the bed. If I am out of bed first, I make the coffee and Steve makes the bed. I meditate, say my prayers, and check my e-mail. Most morning Athena, will have popped up the messenger screen with her usual "GM". (This is her shorthand for "good morning"). With all this completed, I begin my morning.
This particular morning would be a little different, as I looked down to see my sister had left me an instant message. The background was a stunning fall picture of Kentucky dressed out in multi-colored leaves. Was it Fall already? As I stared at the picture of the area in which I grew up in, I could almost smell the crisp cool air that is native to that area. The picture showed a path much like the ones I used to walk on when on my personal sabbaticals with nature. I could almost hear the crunch of the leaves under my feet and feel the shiver I use to experience before pulling my heavy sweater tighter around me.
The outside noise awakened me from my trip down memory lane. My memory trips are never lacking, since I always use all my senses in recall. I utilize sound, smell, feel, sight, and even taste when needed. I call my memories my treasure chest of life, and I pull them out and experience them repeatedly when needed. My ability to achieve this brought about a sharp pang of homesickness this morning and with this a gasp of surprise!
I left Kentucky with only regrets of not seeing my mother, siblings, one uncle and a few emotionally adopted children. I left behind the aches and pains of my joints in the winter, the black slushy ice from the aftermath of a huge snow and the negative side of small town bureaucracy. I took off across the United States with my children, a U-Haul, and the unmovable belief that I could make it on my own. I had not regretted leaving that area even once, so the pang of melancholy over my nostalgia was shocking.
I wake up in a vacation everyday in Pensacola, Florida. Living here affords me the luxury of wearing shorts ten months out of the year. The Gulf Water nearby is so clear that you normally can wade out to your waist, still gaze down, and see your feet. The huge mounds of stark white sands remind you of snowdrifts that are indigenous of winter in the northern states. The palm trees and Seagulls standing out amongst it all make up a number of the most popular postcards made. Why would I possibly miss Kentucky?
It was after a small amount of soul searching that the revelation dawned upon my conscious mind. I believe it was in my subconscious and yet because of my embittered feelings towards a particular group of unsavory individuals, I refused to allow it to my conscious mind. I missed certain parts of Kentucky with the larger parts of my loyalties belonged to Florida. I had branded the entire state with the sins of a few and thus pushed my happy memories away along with the bad. After having the light, some call realization become illuminated, I had face a few facts about my memories.
I would adore making a trip to Kentucky to stroll down the familiar trails and roads for a week in the fall. I would love seeing the countryside decorated by natures own paintbrush as each leaf takes on a color and hue of its own. I would rise early and sit on the porch drinking my coffee as the steam arose from a cup. I would rejoice as I tugged on my thick sweater jacket to walk each trail or path. The smell of the cool fall air, the site of Pumpkins and winter squash being harvested, and the distinct site and smells of Tobacco being fired would make me ecstatic to be there. The week would quickly to come to an end ...
I would do "The HAPPY Dance" all the way back to Florida, put on my shorts and my tank top and run kiss the sandy beaches of Perdido Key. Let us face it, making a snowman or snow woman is awesome, but after a few hours, it is just darn cold and miserable. Snow can look pretty and white first thing in the morning but as the day wears on, it becomes black and slushy on the roads. Walks in the fall can be so wonderful and inviting but after a week, my fun meter would definitely be pegged out. Vacations do have a way of ending that way.
What is one person's vacation is another person's life. The utmost one can accomplish is finding the place that makes them happy and live there. Every place has its good and bad, yet you should live where you find the most happiness! Subsequently, whenever you get ready to take your vacation, you can go to the place that brings a week or two of happiness. Returning home then will be as exciting as your vacation was. Who knows, maybe there was a nostalgic moment in the life of the person who said, "It's a nice place to visit, but I sure wouldn't want to live there!"
In addition, I realized one more thing. I had allowed myself to push away my warm and happy memories with the traumatic experiences others had inflicted on me. This was not only a disservice to me but to entire state that I had blamed for the ugliness of a few. There is a lot of beauty in Kentucky (Even after I left *smiles*).
After all the thoughts, realizations and memories had found their proper place within my spirit; I reached for the keyboard and wrote ... "Hi Sis! Gee Kentucky is looking lovely this fall!"
This lesson is on finding beauty amidst the ugly and about remembering the good while leaving the bad alone. It is about finding the place you want to live and the place you want to visit yet more over, it is about finding peace within yourself. Sometimes, when you would never expect it, those lessons come in the form of homesickness.
If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It's a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it's time to reflect on what's come before.

Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure, Thanksgiving, 1992

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.

P. D. James

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