almost heaven,..take me home ....

there is a certain feeling that comes to my heart in the autumn of the year.... a melancholia,...a desperate longing for things to be the way they once were..... to be in a certain place and time, with very specific people..... I cannot show it to you or explain, but it is etched on my soul.....

yesterday... I drove down a lovely country lane,...in northern Illinois...Collins Road....and I slowed down.  I was not in any particular hurry.  In fact I had a couple of hours to kill.... so I cruised along at around 40mph...  

The corn is past, and the stalks still stand in the fields, with drying leaves fluttering gently in the breeze,..it is actually a warm day, and not yet autumn.  Actual autumn is a few days away,... but that feeling,.... that old melancholia came to my heart.  I ache for the carefree days.... riding in the back seat of my dads big Oldsmobile,...or farther back in my life, to a Pontiac that I honestly do not remember. ....Dad driving, mom in the passenger seat, me, alone in the back seat.  Every now and then I see dad glancing at me in the rearview mirror.  Mom turns her head just enough to see my feet, and to look at dad.  Their voices barely audible to me as I sing for them, occasionally I look out the side window, although, from my perch on booster seat I can see out the front windscreen of the car.

These automobile rides dominate my remembrances, punctuated by time at home and by time spent visiting friends of my parents.  My father was older than my mother, all of their friends were grandparents, most before I was even born.  I spent my childhood with adults, mostly, but everyplace we went was a grandma's house, so that I was kept in that gentle comfort.  

In my memory palace I am a child in autumn. It is not cheerful, but I am comfortable there.  The leaves on the trees are colorful, and I can hear a female voice singing Try to Remember the Kind of September....