Going Home Again (A Poem)

Eight weeks ago

I lived in a Berkeley apartment

And commuted to a school in Mill Valley,

Crossing a bridge like a threshold

Into a second home.

I’ve grown up there

But never grown older. I’m a child. I think I always will be.

But somewhere between brake-light bridge tolls

And drop-off fist bumps

I put on my adult

Like an oxford shirt.

It’s always felt a little too big

And it’s always felt just the right size.

And I’m still figuring it all out.

Eight weeks ago,

I took breaks in classrooms

And spoke imagination like a second language

Because when you get down on one knee,

When you look a child in the eye

You can see the Rosetta Stone of Anything’s Possible

Looking right back at you.

You just need to be brave enough to decipher it,

To put your rules away,

To untuck your perspective

And to roll up your worry

And jump into the puddles

And dig in the sand

And let the ice cream melt

All over your hands

Eight weeks ago,

We had the whole world

In our hands

We had the whole wide world

In our hands,

And I didn’t know how lucky I was to touch it,

How much high fives

Lift my low spirits,

How much hugs say “I love you”

Better than saying “I love you” does,

How much this world was not meant to be seen,

But felt,

How much this world was not meant to be lived in

But lived with.

I haven’t seen my mother or father

In 5 months.

And the thing is,

I wouldn’t really otherwise.

I just feel it more now.

I don’t see my friends often anyway,

I just feel it more now.

I’ve noticed the trees before

But I just see them more now.

Now, I explore neighborhood streets

Like craftsman labyrinths.

I get lost in the eucalyptus

And I find myself in the manzanitas

I’ve transformed walks into medicine

And every time I do

I wonder.

I do what the children do,

And I wonder.

I wonder,

Maybe, when we’re allowed

To “together” again,

I wonder if we’ll remember

What the world looked like from our windows,

I wonder if we’ll remember

How essential essential workers are

And how necessary everyone else is as well.

I wonder if we’ll say thank you

As often as we feel it now,

If we’ll notice the sidewalk poppies

Painting a paradise under the trees,

If we’ll notice when they disappear again.

I wonder if

When we’re allowed to leave our houses again,

We’ll see that we’re crossing the threshold

Into a home that’s been waiting for us

This whole time.