Old favorites
As the weather warms, Premal and I have resumed our habit of walking together. We'll return from our offices just as the sun starts to look a bit lazy in the early evening sky and set off for nowhere in particular. We take these treks often, so often that the scenery holds few surprises. Still, tired surprises soon become old favorites. Favorite doors, and yards, and roofs. We watch familiar gardens grow and flourish, and die and wait. Now they're back at it. Same as ever. Ever lovely, ever there. But now we are leaving, and this little neighborhood will continue its cycle without us. And I realize that even neighborhoods don't really stay the same. You see, we're headed back to another place where I once took frequent walks to nowhere in particular. We're going home. But there, things have changed. Friends have left, and angular condos now fill holes where once familiar fields and houses stood. It's fine, and certainly "good for the neighborhood," but it's very different. So, in these last four weeks that we have here in this city that has treated me so very well for the past ten years, I'm looking around at these old favorites extra hard. Filing away their magic and the comfort they bring me. Because who knows, perhaps we'll be back someday, years and years from now. We will change, and likely the neighborhood will too. Hopefully for the best, but surely it will be very, very different.
As the weather warms, Premal and I have resumed our habit of walking together. We'll return from our offices just as the sun starts to look a bit lazy in the early evening sky and set off for nowhere in particular. We take these treks often, so often that the scenery holds few surprises. Still, tired surprises soon become old favorites. Favorite doors, and yards, and roofs. We watch familiar gardens grow and flourish, and die and wait. Now they're back at it. Same as ever. Ever lovely, ever there. But now we are leaving, and this little neighborhood will continue its cycle without us. And I realize that even neighborhoods don't really stay the same. You see, we're headed back to another place where I once took frequent walks to nowhere in particular. We're going home. But there, things have changed. Friends have left, and angular condos now fill holes where once familiar fields and houses stood. It's fine, and certainly "good for the neighborhood," but it's very different. So, in these last four weeks that we have here in this city that has treated me so very well for the past ten years, I'm looking around at these old favorites extra hard. Filing away their magic and the comfort they bring me. Because who knows, perhaps we'll be back someday, years and years from now. We will change, and likely the neighborhood will too. Hopefully for the best, but surely it will be very, very different.
