I make no bones about the fact that this is the toughest time of the year for me to be separated from the place that I grew up. The fall colors, especially in Northern Michigan, where I have lived for 25 years, are spectacular. The football games are dramatic, even when the teams have been kind of stinky. I miss tailgating at U-M stadium with my friends and siblings in the crisp air. The fall traditions are harder to part with for some reason, and there is nothing that is remotely like that here. I find myself feeling very alien, for some reason.
On the bright side, we did Skype with the kids, and they turned the webcam towards the TV set and we watched the formerly sad-sack Detroit Lions beat the Dallas Cowboys at the end of a dramatic comeback. It was fun, and we are planning to do it on a more ambitious basis next Monday night, when they play the Chicago Bears. We may even put it up on the projector in my classroom. The Tigers managed to hold off the Yankees in New York, and have the series tied coming back to Detroit. So that is a positive.
Still, this is when homesickness bites the hardest. We are not planning to return to the Midwest at Christmas time due to the serious expense of the trip. It will be nice to stay in the village with friends, but it will be a long time before I see Cadillac again. The funny thing is that it took a long time for me to adopt Cadillac as my hometown, despite the length of time that I lived there. Sometimes it takes absence to make the heart grow fonder...
No comments:
Post a Comment