The cooing of doves

So many spring evenings in the Pacific Northwest are gray drizzly affairs and then we get these spring nights that pop like a firecracker with color and promises of summer evenings. We like many others gather at Boulevard Park to stroll unhurried along the waterfront looking out at the beauty this place has to offer. I marvel at the gulls gliding over the pier hoping for bread thrown to them. I laugh at the dog whose sole focus is to retrieve his "bird" from the fridged water hardly noticing anything else. I gaze in wonder at the buds forming on the walnut tree with the moon peaking through the branches or the buds from the wild roses along the path. I am overwhelmed by the colors of the sunset and the breathtaking view of this part of the world. I slowly sip my coffee sharing it with John as we talk, dream, and laugh. May I never become complacent in seeing the beauty here.

It used to be my hometown but when going back, just me not my family I realized that it is not my hometown any more.  I've planted roots in a different spot much like a plant that a gardener has chosen to be in one spot of the garden but has migrated to another unlikely spot and thrived.  This new location draws me close and wraps its arms around me swaddling me with the rain and the clouds during the winter and the sun and mild days during the summer.  It can be claustrophobic at times yet familiar and reassuring all at the same time. There is only  one person that draws me back to my old hometown. The other people and the town itself no longer have a hold over me. I still love the buildings since they have the 1800s architectural style that I admire but there aren't sentimental feelings there at all.  I come back to visit once in a while but to visit her only. People I used to know, I probably wouldn't recognize if I ran into them we were always different from each other.  Somehow I was outside looking in and am OK with that. I wander the empty fields and deserted railway tracks instead; finding beauty in the lone feathers, peeling paint on discarded boards, dried grass, and rusted barbwire fencing.  The sound of cooing doves penetrates the wind, reminding me of my new home and also signaling life in this town. I suppose that I could hide here but not for long, it isn't my home.














The time has past for it to be my hometown and I have rooted elsewhere. The joy and pain are only faded memories which rarely surface and I'm hard pressed to put names and faces together. Each time I wander downtown I wonder who I will meet that I know then I realize that I don't really know anyone in this town. So I visit and love seeing it in a new light each time for it has become a place to visit and never again to live. I have roots deeply planted in a different spot of the garden, one that allows me to bloom, be pruned and bloom again. A place that comforts and challenges, that protects and pushes, a place that is now my hometown.