Nexus

(This entry was written on Friday night from Columbia, MO...)

Woke up this morning to a tornado warning. It was 6:15am, the sky was dark and the wind was howling. The televisions were turned to the weather channels bracing the populace of Champagne-Urbana and its surrounding communities for an impending twister. I must admit, it was kind of exciting. This was an experience that exited my life when we moved to the east coast 26 years ago. The heavy rains came as a few flashes of lighting streaked across the sky, but there was no tornado. Within another twenty mintues, the sky began to brighten. It was quite a relief that the storm did not intensify and wreak havoc, though I was disappointed not to hear the wail of the tornado sirens I remember from my youth. Apparently, they only sound when a tornado touches down within a five mile radius. My mind offered the sketched memory of being a child in a car with my mom and sister in Columbia. Our dog was out during a tornado warning. I remember feeling panicked that she would be whisked away like Toto and Dorothy. But we returned to the house and saw her standing out front, soaking wet, wondering when the hell we were going to let back into the safety of the house.

I saw that house today for the first time in twenty years. It looked so tiny. I remember it being large and spacious with a generous yard, but it must have been a vestigial impression caused by my then diminutive stature. I traveled the route to my elementary school, which had seemed miles and miles away from our house. In fact, it is maybe three quarters of a mile at most. Again, I was small when we lived here. We departed 27 years ago to the month. And that return trip around my twelfth year is largely forgotten.

The town has developed greatly over the years. I remember it being rather more rural and, for the most part, I don’t recognize it. The Mizzou Stadium is smaller than I had thought. I don’t know the location of the particular McDonalds that drove me into frenzied delirium as a child, which was so automatic that my parents soon learned to drive the long way home in order to shield it from my line of vision.

I sat with family friends that treated me with warmth and hospitality fit for a king, despite having not seen me more than once or twice over the past two and a half decades. In the midst of a fascinating dinner discussion with our friends I felt a pang of tremendous regret; whether that was connected to my past or future I do not know, I just remember wondering if such exciting conversations were something that would become more rare in Southern California, or was it that I wondered why I hadn’t spoken to this wonderful couple more often. I saw the hospital where I was born, and where I made frequent emergency room visits. Watched a theatre performance at Stephens College, marinating in the thought that my father was a teacher here when he was my age. Even more surreal, I met two faculty members who knew me as a baby, and stared at me connecting and quantifying the path of my father and me, his son. I felt like Major Tom returning in his space-capsule. Though for many years I had daydreamed of returning here in some great fashion, perhaps as a rock star or revered intellect, sitting at a bar and feeling electricity run throughout my body. The desire to go out never touched me tonight, but the electricity is certainly flowing.