The Catcher in the Rye

It's my last night at home over Thanksgiving break, and my first night back from Washington.

It was a great trip. I was dreading it for the most part but it turned out alright and we all had a good time and saw a lot of awesome stuff (D.C. really is a pretty amazing city).

There's nothing like knowing I have to go back in a few hours to make me feel like I never want to leave, and there is certainly nothing like reuniting with all of my best friends only to have them ripped away from me yet again. Scattered to the winds, all leading different lives.

I've never experienced anything like this before. I just want to hold them and never let them go and fight life away and fight terrible things away and fight grief and pain away so they never have to feel any of it. I've known grief and pain all my life. I've also known so much joy and so much happiness that you can't even imagine. I know if I hold them and never let them go, they won't experience the pain, but they also won't experience the joy. Which is why I let go when I hug them goodbye, and they go off into the world and they go off into the lives they are creating for themselves and they are happy. And sometimes there is pain and sometimes there is struggle, but the best we can do as friends is to be there for one and other. I hope I've been there for them enough, and I hope they know that no matter what, I am ALWAYS here for them. I will never forget about the people who loved me first.

Driving through town tonight I watched saw lawn chairs splayed out in driveways. Old men who smoke too much, who watch the years go by and listen to the trains die away in the distance. Young people who dream and know and do, who watch the summers fade to falls fade to winters and burst into springs. The lawn chairs never leave, nor do the old men, but the young people, like the train songs, fade into the distance and become a part of the town's memory. We have the distinct pleasure of being living memories, we dreamers and thinkers and doers. It is a great honour and a great burden.

I miss the summer breezes and the way the weeping cherry branches feel against pale cheeks and how the air is perfumed with the smell of azaeleas. I miss bare feet sweeping along the gravelly driveway, and bare heads sitting beneath the warm sun. I can't wait to sit in the lawn chairs again, like the old days, and talk nothing and eat strawberries and blackberries and blueberries. It's like time is stuck there for an hour or two, the town's memory hangs there and we're all young again and we're all great again and we will all achieve greatness and our hopes and our dreams are limitless.

A very happy late Thanksgiving to all and a very merry beginning to your holiday season.