Ahhh.

Have you ever been so attached to a place and a time that goes along with that place, that it exemplifies something transcendental to you? If you lost this place, would you mourn as if you'd lost a family member?

If I'm feeling homesick, or alone, or restless or sleepless, etc., I go through a sequence in my brain in which I explore a familiar environment. It's often my maternal grandparents' home, in which my mother grew up, where my grandparents still live today. In my mind, the epitome of deep peace and happiness that completely overrides every self-doubt and worry.

My little sequence starts out with a visualization of the painting that used to hang from a large oak tree in the front yard. The tree died from some disease about a decade ago, but in this place and time, I'm about 10 years old, so it's still there. There's a blue frame around it, and a summer breeze sets it swinging gently. I can almost hear the familiar creak of the mounting chains.

Then I shrink about a foot and a half, till I'm 10-year-old-sized and carefree. I'm standing at the end of the driveway looking towards the house, while late-morning sunshine beams down through the leaves overhead. Late morning is the best time of day. I walk up the driveway, taking a minute to ponder the life of a penny that was set into the driveway when my grandpa poured it in 1947. That penny had seen my uncles and mother as babies, children, teenagers, etc. etc., and my grandparents as young newlyweds. I walk past the house and breathe in the smells of sun-warmed ivy and soil, warm, old, painted wood, and perhaps the smoke from somebody's lunchtime grilling.

I throw open the side door to absorb the familiar smell of inside-gramma's-house - a mixture of turpentine (my grampa is a painter), and essence-of-grandparents that I can't really describe, and antiquity. It's the smell of a lifetime of memories. After getting a lungful of that important air, I frolic back outside, past the tomato plants, and through the wooden gate between the house and the garage that leads to the backyard. I slam the gate shut with a happy, joyful wooden clap that I'm remembering fondly as I write these words. Flip flops go flying as I race through the backyard, dodging neon golf balls that my grampa practices with. There are impatiens in red, purple, white and pink bordering the backyard, and hostas, and lilies.

Beyond the aged trees on the bluff is the river! The sparkling, wide river. I clamber up onto the deck that overlooks the bluff that plunges to the channel-side of the river just in time to see a flock of ducks come down for a landing. The pin oak leaves cast dapples onto the deck and I turn around to see gramma walking towards me from the house, with a mug of root beer in one hand, for me!