“The options of travel and exile may be exhausted, yet instead of despairing, the traveler may hit upon one last alternative: the return. Why not go back to the very place one left, as a kind of deliberate exercise of freedom?”—Walker Percy, Lost in the Cosmos
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Nadir of autumn’s splendor peaked and passed displaying brilliant, bold, and emanant; and then, as is its way, in seeming single-wind, glory was changed and it was no longer autumn but only the fall—fast descent into cold and despondence of winter’s set.
They walked a smalltown square that lived as a few local shops, restaurants, lawyers’ offices for the courthouse that served as square’s center. The rest shone as empty fronts from those who tried and failed followed by those that never tried in world that was everchanging; and, by this, square slowly died, and the block stores grew in an economy and culture that was evermore impersonal, banal—depressing.
Annie looked on the empty fronts, some still with signs of stores she’d known in youth. Maybe it was the emptiness of the stores or the becoming bareness of the trees, but a somberness overcame.
A wind blew, cold and damp, and shook brown leaves from century white oak limbs loose in fall and scatter over street and walk. Annie felt the wind over open face and on legs through denim jeans. She drew dark pea coat tighter in wrap upon her body, tucking chin in collar to warm as her breath formed in cloud before on the damp, cold day.
Her fingers burned in nerve-memories of past colds and frost-bites of youth and life raised and made outdoors. She dressed as the city now, but the town and surrounding countrysides would always be her roots.
She dug her hands deep into coat’s pockets, balling fingers into fists to speed their warming and the nerve-memories burned stronger as they do in restoring back to sense.
Maybe it was day, weather, or truly was the place, but a sadness rose and told from her eyes as she looked on viewed reality of an idealized remembrance. What of the place had changed, or was ideal always only imagined? She didn’t know. It had been years since she’d returned.
“It’s not how I remembered,” Annie spoke, despondence telling in her tone.
James listened with compassion knowing what place had meant. He had no answer, only compassion. She thought, by coming home, she would touch again a spirit-essence of a past. She did not find the warmth. All she felt was cold, cold in way that comes in the dampness and heaviness of sky that needs but will not cry, and lost in a place that once was home.
“It doesn’t have to stay this way,” James consoled.
“What doesn’t?”
“The day, the trip, the experience and making memory; there are other ways of re-entry.”
“I hoped it would be different: the way I remembered.”
“Then let’s live and make and write it as you hoped. The day isn’t done, and we aren’t fixed to set and stay in a sadness. There are other ways of re-entry.”
James looked with smile and warmth to Annie, his countenance indifferent to dampness and cold of day, warmth of spirit undiminished as he gazed on Annie, her chin still tucked and warming within coat’s collar, her cheeks rouged bright with shock of cold that shone as pink and not of the richer ruddiness and rose that graced in show of deeper risen warmths.
His smile changed her cold.
They returned to a bed and breakfast that resided one block away from the square. In their room was a fireplace, clean and painted white, with basket of cured wood, neat-stacked, cut, and split for dimensions of hearth.
Further warming, they built a fire and lain by the hearth in make of love at closeness so that thermals of the light singed soft on free-borne skin, her richer rose displayed.
They rested then loved again; and, after, gone was the depression of before in day. They lived in better spirit; and it is spirit that makes the memory.
After, they walked again the smalltown streets, and their dreariness was gone. In the overcast of day under limbs of century oaks, there was levity where before was lamentation. Restored to Annie’s eyes was a light where before shone sadness of loss.
Beside her, James imagined in dreams and visions that would write as story.
Place was not important. It was they that wrote the romance.
Holding Annie’s hand, James spoke to her and world and dream, “Working writers, let’s be these—you and I. Let’s write our stories and dream our dreams even if world cares or notices little. Let’s write ideals as we remember, as we wish them still to be, and maybe—if we tell them well so that we and others believe—maybe they’ll become.”
Annie took his hand in tighter hold as the first rays of light in all the day broke through clouds and lit—gold to grey—on century oaken limbs.
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“What with the artist types and writer types…taking over such places as the French Quarter, and business types and lawyer types going cowboy, I predict the working artists will revert to the vacated places. In fact, they’re already turning up in ordinary houses and ordinary streets long since abandoned by the Hemingways and Agees…not altogether unconsciously…as a kind of exercise in the ordinary.”
