Travelers always talk about returning home to find that everything’s the same. How odd, they say (I’ve said), that you can experience so much elsewhere and upon opening that front door back home, nothing’s changed except you and your perception.
Sometimes you’re gone a long time, though, and too much happens. Part of being in the community is physical presence, and you can lose that. And sometimes, before you even return, you know that things are not the same at all.
Ben
I call and we catch up
on video chat. Your friends
got robbed and 4th of July
was too loud to hear the
bonfire, and my roommate
doesn’t eat vegetables.
When it’s time to talk
about our friend, the reason
I called. Both of us loosen
our gaze somewhere past
the phones. He was
doing so well, too.