"A" is for...

Thinking I'd read my cousin's blog before talking to the grandparents, I came across her latest musings.

In fact, I'm not sure if it's only the weather, or if I've reached "that" age where a person begins to crave their natural home. I've watched many friends slowly saunter their ways back, some right after school, some after a few years in another town, yet with few (but how feisty!) exceptions all have returned to the places they grew up. Of course this makes sense on a logical level, there are families, friends and familiarity in these places, but I also feel there is something more to it. I'm reading The Scarlet Letter with my kids and there is a part that talks about how people are bound by intangible yet irrevocable ties to the site of their greatest sadness. I feel like this idea gets closer to the real reason than the logical explanation. Of course I'm not saying that everyone had a terrible childhood and this is why they ultimately come back to their hometown; I just wonder what it is really. Especially now because I'm feeling the draw too in a surprisingly powerful way. Hmm...

(Bold emphasis mine.) I had to read Hawthorne's classic three times, but strangely enough I don't recall this particular part. Of course it would take another language-oriented person to point it out. Or rather, it would take a Palmer to do that. Oh wait, that's a little redundant. There are no non-humanities people in the family. Suffice to say, this is the cousin I'd run into at regional spelling bees.

But yeah, cuz. I did just that. Who knows, maybe we all do.

And now, prone to genetic moodiness, I'm reminded of Kipling's poem "The Recall." (Despite any political judgements of Kipling, he wrote some damn good poems.)

I am the land of their fathers,
In me the virtue stays;
I will bring back my children,
After certain days.

Under their feet in the grasses
My clinging magic runs.
They shall return as strangers,
They shall remain as sons.

Over their heads in the branches
Of their new-bought, ancient trees,
I weave an incantation,
And draw them to my knees.

Scent of smoke in the evening,
Smell of rain in the night,
The hours, the days and the seasons
Order their souls aright;

Till I make plain the meaning
Of all my thousand years
Till I fill their hearts with knowledge,
While I fill their eyes with tears.

On a related note, why do they always make teenagers read that tale about Puritans bearing a child out of wedlock?