Friday we packed the truck and made our way to Kentucky.
We visit my family there several times a year–it is where I grew up, and almost everyone is still there. In my mind it seems like things shouldn’t change when I’m gone. It’s always something of a tradition to drive through the town and point out all the things that are new, different, or missing. We don’t mean to do it. It just happens.
I long to return to the lush greens and blues and the sunrises you can actually see (even when it’s covered by clouds) that makes a five a.m. wakeup completely worth it, and the landscapes that seem deeply poetic no matter the season, moody winter or vibrant spring. There is corn in the field this year, and the edge of the crops as they go over the slope by the old house looks like the edge of some monstrous, soft blanket.
This morning I woke at five of my own accord, though my sleep was fitful, and I hurriedly slipped out of bed to make coffee and watch the sunrise. There were too many clouds to see much, but I sat outside anyway, listening to the birds stirring and the bobwhites calling one another while the grey clouds occasionally showed pink and betrayed what lay behind them.
In a little while the boys will be out of bed (I can already hear that they’re up) and they’ll eat and dress and we’ll head back into town to visit my Grandma in the hospital again. I took them the day after we arrived (I myself had already gone the night before) and Clive especially asks constantly when we will “go see Gwanma again.”
It is uncanny to think that she lies in a bed in the hospital where I was born. Too many things change while we’re away.
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