It’s funny the things you can forget about the country you sprung from – even when you are reminded from time to time by going back. Little things, but ones that sidle away from you when you’re not looking. Especially when you live in far off place that – however mild the weather, and however beautiful the beaches – hasn’t sunk the shaft into your heart and will therefore never quite be home. There are things that spring out at you when you come back as if they had been lying in wait, patiently certain that you would return, carrying with them the weight of a hundred associations, the baggage of a thousand memories, real and received.
It’s Fall in Virginia, and unlike California, that word still retains its original meaning here. The leaves have changed, and many indeed have fallen with many waiting their turn, resignedly hoping for the right impetus. They are muted rather than raucous this year and most still dangle, which combination of facts inform me that the early Autumn was a dry one. I look at them and am suddenly 13 years old again, I can feel the rake in my hand, feel the blisters coming up, remember the running and jumping and rolling around within.
Dry though the season may have been, the rain was pouring down in gouts yesterday in northern Virginia. A hard, unkind fat-drop downpour whose existence you could forget about as well but which brought back memories of shivering in a boy scout tent, or watching it from inside the house with my chin in my hands and my breath fogging the glass, in either case praying for it to stop. Please God, stop. This was before cable and the Internet and for a boy-child there were few good reasons to be inside and fewer still to love the rain.
I spoke to my sister on the phone at the airport in Dulles, asked her to see what she could do about the weather before I got back up north after my conference was done. Wasn’t sure I wouldn’t melt in the rain, I said – it’d had been that long and me as sweet-natured as a sugar cube. She promised to do what she might, but reminded me that for everything there is a season, and anyway it had been a long while out of reckoning since wildfires had destroyed 1500 houses in Virginia.
Which I had to give her that.
Oak trees of course, and low, dark creeks with haygrass coming up. I drove by in the rental car with no time to stop and check for sign, but I could nevertheless hear the grass rubbing alongside the jonboat even as I felt the oars working in their tholes. I could almost smell the mad old lunker hiding out below a tree limb that was lazily drawing patterns in a dawdling current. Smell him, but never quite catch him. Never could. But there would always be tomorrow.
It’s still warm outside, so it isn’t quite time yet for the dogs and the decoys, but it’s not so far away, either. The ducks will be here soon. Up early, dark plashing and shivering anticipation, hot chocolate and wet dog commingling in my nose, the Canadas honking far above, out of reach. Cold and wind-whipped, but happy. Like me.
I stopped into a store where a pretty young girl at a cash register smiled sweetly, her brilliant teeth flashing out of a coal dark face. She asked me how I was like she really wanted to know and paused, secure in the knowledge of my certain, forthcoming reply. She then went back to conducting her inventory with an impressively dignified older woman across the aisle, a woman she referred to as “Miss Andi”- a woman whom I was once taught in a different lifetime to recognize as “high yeller”, which fact I shame myself by instantly remembering. And I know them both, and through knowing them remember where I came from, where I’ve been along the way and where I’ve finally come to.
Not all is ostentatious self-discovery, bathetic sweetness and sepia-stained light however. On the highway south of Norfolk I looked down and saw the little shotgun shacks and tar paper houses with their tidy back yards and clotheslines and suddenly I know the people who live there, too. And although I’ve never seen them, nor can they see me, yet can I feel their rheumy eyes following me for a moment with neither hope, nor anger, nor fear – they are beyond fear – nor even a spark of recognition before falling back once more inside themselves, back upon their own gnarled and cloistered familiarities.
Everything changes.
Some things just don’t change quickly enough.
In junior high, and my first year of high school, we lived in Alexandria, VA. In a neighborhood off the George Washington Parkway called Stratford Landing. I had a plywood Folboat kayak there, my “first command”. Nobody else in the family wanted to use it, and that was fine with me.
George Washington had his brickyard along the banks of Little Hunting Creek, and I guess the bricks that didn’t become part of Mount Vernon got left behind in pieces in the mud. I’d paddle over them in the green soupy water that snaked through alternating patches of shade and light.
The Potomac looked pretty big to a 14 year old whose dad was never home, grinding out an unhappy staff tour at the Pentagon. If you looked in the right direction, you actually saw a ‘sea horizon’ as the river spread out to the south. But I was just trying to get to Fort Washington on the opposite bank.
It’s been over 30 years since I’ve been there, but I always know whenever I will go back it will seem like just yesterday. Virginia will do that to–and for–you.
Ahh. There really is no place like home, and you can go back, despite wisdom to the contrary.
Luckily memories have an odor: the smell of leaves burning (a rarity, granted) can take me right back to childhood. Or the smell of water, of the sort they keep tadpoles and outboards in.
Yup.
For me it is the smell of the sea, tangy and salty and slighty mildewed from the plants and fish and mingly with the dark sand and mud along the beach.
But fall, with leaves crunching underfoot and the scent of wood smoke low down upon the area is always a special time. A bit of a bite to the air, a hint of rain or frost. It’s good to be alive, outside the city.
As to those small shanties and such, there’s much to be said for that life. Having a crib full of wood and a sheet iron stove to both cook and heat the place. A rope bed with a feather mattress and homemade quilts. A garden out back and a shotgun for meat, a rod and reel for fish. A cup of strong black coffee in the morning and a tot or two of whiskey in the evening. A radio and a dog for company. A man could do much, much worse than that.
It’s a lifestyle change I’ve been pondering for the last couple years. It may well happen sooner rather than later.
respects,
Sure signs of reaching the middle of ones timeline…
“They” say you can never go back, but I’ve Google Earthed my old haunts in Illinois too many times to say I believe that. Arizona just doesn’t offer the same…substance(?). I miss my woods, too.
amen. There’s no fall like a Virginia fall. Post made me homesick as hell. Damn you Lex.
Ah yes, Autumn in the NorthEast. A truly glorious time, even as the leaves descend to cause blisters and work on successive weekends. The colors, the smells – I admire your fortitude Lex, in living so far away from it all. I suppose that makes you appreciate it the more when you return to it – but I think a part of me would shrivel up if I couldn’t have my change of seasons, the sharp crackle of a fireplace – hot tea in hand while the colorful leaves whip outside the window in an autumn wind.
Ahh…yes Retread, there really is no place like home. Even for folks who have lived a life like our humble host.
Home for me is where ever Husband and I are. Has been from the very first of our marriage. Doesn’t seem to matter where we are, but where ever it is, it’s home.
And, Retread, you’re right about the smells of our past. They can take me places I had forgotten about in a split second.
I love our western falls, as the hillsides change colors with the maples and the tamaracks. I love the crazy days when it snows, rains, hails, snows, the sun peeks out and highlights the landscape in gold, and then snows again. Nothing better than to be indoors watching it all happen with a hot drink and a warm cat in your lap.
Ahhh, Lex! These “home” posts get me every time. As pretty as other places are, and wonderful as the friends you make in those places are, there really is no place like home, no friends like old friends. They knew you when and love you still, those friends and those home places. Thank God, my traveling days are over!
Lord, what a melancholy post. In a good sense though. I had a chance to spend a few days over the T’Day kayak camping here in NC, and what a relaxing trip it was. Slow moving river, beaver, deer, herons, egrets, ducks, coyotes, stars, cold (22 degrees) and a great sandbar to camp on with a roaring campfire. Love the change of seasons.
Regards,
Lex ~ can you feel my jealousy???
I sure hope so. ;~)
You can always go “home”, you just can’t stay.
For me, the smell of fallen leaves slowly decaying reminds me of long ago deer hunts with family and friends. Luckily, I am able to relive this the third week of each November, here in Central Illinois.
Can one possibly be nostalgic for something one has never known? If so, then your “home” posts certainly activate that feeling in me, Lex.
As both career USAF and an AF brat…and one who was drug around the world (quite literally) at an early age… I’ve always envied folks who had a home to go home to, however briefly.
When I retired from the AF in 1985 the longest I’d lived in any one place was three years, and that was in London. And I remain “homeless,” in a manner of speaking, to this day. Something is lost…true. But a lot was gained, as well. I wouldn’t do a thing differently, even if there were such a thing in life as a do-over.
Lex,
I get the same feeling seeing the aspens change here in Colorado.
Almost forgot the first snows of the season hitting the high peaks.
Walking out on the first ice up at the cabin on Thanksgiving weekend. Hearing the cracking of the ice and wondering if one will make me swim.
Dave
I will trade you…
Give me back the rainfall in a desert monsoon and you can have your falling leaves…
I spoke to the rain goddess about the weather… it should be better by the time you return.
Fall in Virginia is great for Boy Scout Camping. Cold enough to enjoy a campfire, no snow yet. Not too much rain. Great memories of Dads and Lads learning how to do things together.
My young navy wife taught school in Stratford Landing while I made the trip up the Parkway to work. Thanks for the memories.
Bill,
My scout troop made the trip up to Gettysburg one rainy summer. Nearly all of our scout leaders were active or retired military. I didn’t know what a “staff ride” was at the time, but that’s what we did, along with several day trips to the Virginia battlefields. Military history from those who lived it.
They were the calmest teachers I ever had. The only time I ever saw them upset was when us dumb kids thought it would be fun to divide into blue and grey factions and ended up throwing rocks at each other. Well, they went ballistic on us. We had what seemed like an all-night standing in the rain ‘come to Jesus’ lecture about NOT making that particular national mistake again. They were VERY emotional about it. It made a big impression.
If you saw Denzel Washington in REMEMBER THE TITANS you know what I mean.
Lex, the feelings you hold for your beloved Virginia are the same as mine for these east Kentucky hills. The deep hollers, the distant ridges marching off into the distance, the hill folk from whom I came and among whom I live again. Life is meant to be lived, not endured. We sold out of an increasingly crowded, squalid, and crime ridden south Florida several years ago and bought more ground here than I ever thought we’d own. A new house on our highest hilltop is nearly finished. You can go home again, ya know. Best to you and yours this Christmas season.
There are post out here in the ether world that have value for what they say. And there are post out here that have value for how they say what they say. Rarely, some kind soul points the way to one that has both. I owe Chap a debt of gratitude for that (untitled 28 Nov post). Nicely done, mate. Doc
Thanks, Doc – high praise indeed.