©IBKimage2012

You can’t go home again but you can sure visit a place that you came from, finding there a familiarity that you’ve carried with you all of your life, no matter how old you are or how far your journey has taken you away.  The image today is a small car and pedestrian ferry that crosses the Kiel Canal, at Hochdonn, in Northwest Germany near the area where I was born many years ago.  As we approached the ferry recently, to cross over, memories flooded back to a time when my mother would ride her bicycle, with me in a carrier in front, and my brother, six years older, riding his own.  Our journey was from the small village we lived in before we emigrated to America and our destination was to my maternal grandparents home, in Meldorf,  about 15 miles away. I must have been 4 years old.

During my recent visit, I attended a Friday morning market in the town square, where fish, and cheese, egg and vegetable vendors of a new generation offered  their wares.  That brought to mind the trips to the market with my grandparents when the fish were so fresh from the local fishermen’s overnight catch, that some still moved in their wooden crates.  The fish was wrapped in newspaper, put in my grandparents market bags, and off we went, on foot to their house, where my grandmother was soon cooking the fresh fish and vegetables for our noon meal.

So many years later, I realize that walking to places, buying my food fresh, building relationships with local vendors, being always drawn to and longing for the sea with it’s attendant breezes, smells and sights, is what I keep looking for in the places I have lived, but of course even the place I’ve described  now has supermarkets (albeit smaller) and fresh prawns  from the area are  outsourced to Morocco for cleaning, preserving and sent back to the area for sale.  In my grief, I can at the same time be grateful that I have experienced the gifts of the sea and the fresh offerings of the land and farmyard. Most of all though, my return reminded me that the relationships and love of family and friends can nurture in us a desire to wander.  You can’t go home again, but I can hardly wait for my next visit.

Where in your heart and mind, is your home port?

IBK