George Inness: After a Summer Shower (1894)

It Cost Us Much More
I woke this morning to find Molly, our nearly feral girl cat, curled up on top of The Muse's open suitcase. We'd returned home the afternoon before to find our boy cat Max waiting and ready to mount my lap for some overdue petting. Molly had slipped in unnoticed later for her quick bite of supper before disappearing back out into her waning summer. The Muse harvested the week's worth of ripe tomatoes from our extraordinarily productive garden, and we took supper inside, the outside temperature having plummeted into Autumn in the short time we'd been gone. Our absence had made our hearts grow fonder for this place from which we were so long ago Exiled. Homecomings since have been uniformly sweet. They make the leaving seem worthwhile even though the world we find out there seems increasingly hostile to innocent visitors. Decent digs seem almost impossible to find. We traveled well again, our style honed in no small measure by our long-ago exile. We travel almost exclusively via roads few consider taking. We avoid schedules, often stopping to read and learn from those roadside readerboards. I gratefully slow to allow whoever's behind me to pass, lest they follow too closely and learn our sacred secrets. We learned to find our way by being rudely Exiled and thriving anyway. May we never have to go away like that again. I'm grateful, though, for the learning being laid low afforded us. I'd say our understanding's priceless, but it cost us much more than that. It's worth more, too.

—

Weekly Writing Summary

This Exiled Story found me resisting Leaving. The last Exile might have leached out from my system the need ever to leave home again.

Harry Sternberg: Father Leaving Home with Suitcase [Series/Book Title: Life in Woodcuts] (20th century)
"I no longer need to take leave."
—
This Exiled Story found me seeking out Familiars, my sense of family when I was far, far away from my family.

Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt: Robin [Erithacus rubecula] (1596 - 1610)
" … long ago when I still expected novelty to light my way home."
—
This Exiled Story caught me recounting how The Muse and I came to embrace living Accidentally after our bankruptcy stole our liquidity and we were Exiled to one of this country's most expensive cities.

Unidentified Artist: Avoid Accidents! Think of Safety! [Series/Book Title: Social Museum Collection]  (c. 1903)
" … we ended up Accidentally thriving there …"
—
In this Exiled Story, I remembered how we were Exiled to the place with more ExPats than any other place in this country and how that fact helped us find our place in that alien world.

Eduard-Julius-Friedrich Bendemann: The People of Jerusalem in Exile (c. 1832)
" … not actually sentenced to spend time in jail but still there, even if Just Visiting."
—
This Exiled Story spoke of the Anonymity that comes with being Exiled. It's some mix of superpower and vulnerability, benefit and handicap, that helps transform the one who was before they were Exiled.

W. Tringham, after Jacques de Sève: Onbekend dier [Anonymous Animal] (1773)
" … I sense myself a better man …"
—
This Exiled Story told how I conquered the DC Metro region by discovering SecretPassages rather than being assimilated into the clogged traffic patterns.

Odilon Redon: Passage of a Soul (1891)
"The roads least taken tend to be the ones most worth taking."
—
This Writing Week found The Muse and I taking a toodle out into the Early Autumn sun. The drive reminded us of aspects of our Exile, with one huge difference. We had someplace to come home to at the end of this trip. I encountered my hesitance to Leaving again, as we didn't feel moved to leave until eleven in the morning, a far cry from the insistence my Dad instilled in me early that we leave before sunrise. We caught ourselves gravitating toward Familiars, too, even walking out of a prospective supper place because it didn't feel adequately hospitable. More extraordinaryly, we Accidentally took a wrong turn and vastly improved our experience over what we'd planned. We found ourselves on a two-lane macadam road that turned in stages into a one-lane, then gravel, then into packed dirt. We didn't know where the road would lead or, indeed, if it lead anywhere. Our faith was challenged as we continued until we discovered it took us just about where the right way would have left us, but in far better condition! We re-experienced being ExPats visiting a town I fondly remembered from childhood but now gone to seed, sadly, now a genuine Pottersville. We reveled in Anonymity for a few days, a well-earned respite from the notoriety we often experience at home. I even discovered a new SecretPassage while ferrying myself between our hotel and my son's place. Overall, this Writing Week provided a satisfying pseudo-Exiled experience. Thank you for following along!


©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz