Old Roots

On most mornings the thump and crash of waves hitting land, the moan of wind and the whir of a sprinkler head are the sounds that come first through walls and windows shaking me from sleep. By now these sounds are ingrained and perceived almost as a soundtrack, and on those occasions of waking in a different setting I open my eyes confused by the silence. That happened this morning in a Louisiana bed that for some time at least I can call my own.

Out of bed, I wander out to the back patio of Raymond and Dee’s house to sit for a few minutes and absorb the notes and chords of a different soundtrack, this one composed of the chinwagging of unfamiliar birds, the whoosh of tires on pavement and the splash of frisky koi in their tree shaded pond. A cardinal sits on the nearest bird feeder and in his eagerness rattles the seed from its spout. He stuffs himself with safflower, thistle and cracked corn for one guarded minute, until a fat and also hungry squirrel approaches from the limbs above. Three cats twine between the chair legs, occasionally coming by to polish my feet and beg for a scratch under the chin.

Sitting in this arbor of green among Eden-like lushness, it takes a moment or two for my ocean-shaped vision to adjust, to bring into focus a palette not dominated by blue and white. Here it’s all brick and stone against the spreading green of fox tail fern and Louisiana iris. The shrimp plant and angel wing begonias splash their red and green at the foot of a loquat tree and nearby stand their neighbors, the lemon, fig and satsuma trees. It is a setting very unlike the spare and distant perspective of Florida’s ocean shore and a welcome change from the salt and glare that mediate everything there.

Each time I return to this place that colored my childhood, the sense of connection is strong in spite of now unfamiliar streets and development. There is something about it that arouses a feeling of being lost at home. The names on street signs trigger a flash of memory, a teenage face, a 1957 Chevrolet. The missing oak trees on Steele Boulevard, a onetime alley of ancient drooping limbs and extruded roots remind me of Robert R, a schoolmate of those days. The oaks were all cut down after residents along the street complained of giant roots pushing up through the asphalt surface, their road constantly broken by those grandfatherly roots. The house here on Lobdell is several miles east of those absent oaks, in a neighborhood also rich with the remembered tokens of childhood and youth. Goodwood Elementary was the site of many after school basketball games, few of which we won against those red and white clad Cardinals. And at the northern edge of Goodwood only a short walk from this patio is the old municipal airport (now a park) where piper cubs took off and landed.

And so the feeling is like coming home, but to one where I can’t remember well what’s in that old hall closet or where the back bedroom is. A place familiar in so many ways, but brimming with hidden facets that promise to reveal themselves in the coming weeks, a delicious scavenger hunt with old friends among old haunts. Raymond and Dee asked how long I wanted to stay and I suggested a time frame from two weeks to two years.

Home in the Heart

Some years ago the Maruoka-cho Cultural Foundation in Fukui, Japan sponsored a contest called, “A Brief Letter From the Heart,” asking ordinary people of all ages, from all over Japan, to write a short letter of five or six lines expressing their feelings on several subjects. They chose the fifty-one best letters in each group and published them in a series of short books. One of those collections of outstanding letters was called, Japan’s Best “Short Letters to My Hometown.” I found some of those letters especially moving, or notable in the sense of being dead-on target in a few words. Most are an affirmation that even non-writers can express their feelings in a graceful and candid way. I want to share a few of those letters here.

I found the honey-colored shell of a

cicada in the garden at home.

This is where my hometown starts.

Toshiki Ueda (M. 12)

Rated last in livability in the whole

country.

What’s wrong with that?

When for me it’s number one.

Yosuke Wachi (M. 21)

Soil, grass, trees, sky, water, pebbles,

all soak into you, body and soul;

even with soap,

they won’t come off.

Kunie Yamamoto (F. 48)

What can I see—

the labyrinth of electric wires

in a forest of buildings.

This city is my hometown.

Got a problem with that?

Kentaro Yamanaka (M. 20)

The contest was also open to non-Japanese, and among the fifty-one letters chosen were thirteen by people living in Japan, but not Japanese. This last is one example, written in English originally.

The one place where I take the

loneliness off with my shoes,

with the realization that

this is where I was always going.

Cheshe M. Dow (F. 18)

With the exception of the last letter, all others were translated from the Japanese by Patricia J. Wetzel.