On Leaving The Ranch

Departure days from The Ranch are always tinged with sorrow.

I have a routine that I have stumbled into over the last two years in getting ready to leave.  Laundry is always done the day before.   Vacuuming and toilet cleaning/preparation are done either the night before or morning of, depending on departure times.  Dishes are in the cupboard except for what is needed for breakfast.  Last fire is banked on the day before departure, so only the ashes need be cleaned out into the bucket before I go to be dumped upon my return.

The mental part is harder, of course.  That said, there is not the sense of leaving my parents as there used to be. 

I saw my mother this visit as I do almost ever visit.  As always, she is kind although my sister and I are sure that she does not have a clue who we are.   She definitely looks much thinner now and I am struck over the visits by how different her haircuts are - this time her hair was longer, something I cannot ever remember seeing in my memory, only in pictures.  But she is no longer here in that sense; her memory gently pervades the place in the items that remain and the memories that I have.

My father is here more to me as a presence - not as much in the house (although his chair by the fire remains where it has always been and is as toasty as ever in the Winter) as on the property.  Walking about it, I can still hear him mumbling about getting the brush hog out to knock down the sprouted brush or out on his walks with a hoe, taking out volunteer star thistle that he worked so hard to eliminate.  But he, too, is a memory floating above and around this place.

The biggest thing I miss when I leave is the peace.

At least two days this week, I saw no-one physically for the greater part of the day.  Certainly I interacted with people via phone and InterWeb - that is my job, after all - but there was no physical presence.  There was also no noise such as impedes on my every day existence in "The Real World":  of note this week was a chainsaw team working a tree at my Aunt and Uncle's that ran almost all day, but that was it.  The turkeys wandered by on their endless quest for food, the deer continued their evening and morning dining.  Life here - Life in its fullest form, not just as a human-centric item - continues at pace all its own. 

Soon enough after the post on Saturday morning, I will re-enter the world.  I will make the drive to my sister's, get taken to the airport, packed in a flying tube, and shipped back to New Home.  At every touch point the modern world will ratchet up its presence - people, sound, activity - until by the time I arrive home I will be engulfed by the reality of 24 hour/365 day modern urban America, where there is something going on at every minute and progress seems measured only by the noise and activity we can generate.

An odd thing happened on Friday as I drove up to see my Aunt and Uncle.  As I went in the house, my Uncle said "Seeing you come up the driveway with the white hair and on the Gator, I almost thought you were your father."  I laughed of course - I can completely imagine what he was talking about as I had seen my father do that a thousand times driving up to the house - but it struck a chord in me that I could not shake.  There was a certain rightness - to the driving, to being mistaken for my father, for the drive back down to my parent's house, and even in pulling aside for a few moments and visiting with the neighbors that had come to feed the cattle.

This is what I lament most when I go:  this sense of always leaving somewhere that it feels like I belong.