As word of our imminent departure gets around, we’ve been seeing many more of our friends than usual. It’s funny, to think that a bridge toll is usually the deterrent, but that seems to be the case. In any event, as we’re seeing friends, we’ve been looking about at our little neck of the woods, and seeing it more as strangers or visitors than as residents.
Part of visiting with people, after all, is taking them to see the waterfront, walking down the main drag (1st Street), and enjoying the breezes so common to Benicia. Before this move was thrust upon us, we would walk 1st Street every other day or so, as exercise. True, we’d enjoy it, but there’s a special poignancy in realizing that you may not see something for years.
Perhaps that’s part of the reason why we keep hearing the train whistle, echoing across the bay: that the trains might not sound the same in Scotland. Part of it is also, I’m sure, the fact that we’re to be taking the train to New York, in only two weeks!
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So, we look out over our balcony at the bay, or at ordinary things, with different eyes: eyes which will be seeing new things shortly, but which want to fix this little town firmly into memory.
– D & T
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Goodness, it is so beautiful. May we never forget, wherever we are, to look…
What a quaint little building. It sounds like you are getting homesick already. I guess it’s sort of like grieving in a way…
Can you take a piece of it with you… a palm tree or two? (smile).
You are doing the right thing: trying to appreciate it now. My advice is to keep doing this and eat Mexican food for breakfast, lunch and dinner up until the day you are ready to leave. By the time you get here you’ll be so sick of it that you won’t miss it for months.
Looking at your photograph actually made ME homesick for California, and I am not a fan of hot, dry weather. Scotland is beautiful, but there is nothing like those palm trees here.