Returning

Returning is hard but I am led and guided by reasons to return, like I was by those to leave. Cavafy understood this and by calling it Ithaka said it much better than I can. When my “away” is as inspiring as you might infer from the image below, I need compelling reasons to return. Where I went I found inspiration to bring back, thanks to my kindred spirits up there, you know who you are. Not quite oracles, but ….

 

Convergence there generated heat like a blowtorch wielded delicately, and what was frozen has changed state, molecule by molecule and droplets trickle as gravity leads.

 

Millions of droplets make one brook, hundreds of brooks to streams and branches, and scores of them into the tiny Winooski. . .

 

. . . itself a tributary to the tributary to the . . . and finally into the Gulf Stream and the other currents, where Alice and all her sisters play. Alice goes back and forth all the time and never stops as you can see here if you follow all the way down. But her crew and all the crews of her sisters, they must define departing and returning differently than I do. Happy 2007 Alice’s crew and all the rest of you. Thanks for waiting for me. Soon even the dinghies will be sailing again.

 

All photos by Will Van Dorp.