the scent of summer in the homeland

I breathe in and joy washes through me. The scent of summer--a mix of dust, dry grass, ocean winds, pines and wildflowers--reminds me I am home. I revel in the majesty of the landscape, the sweep of the green hills and the blue mountains in the distance, the dry heat, the ants that are crawling across the page and up and down my spine; they, too, are my friends, my compatriots.

I sit outside on the side of the road because this is my homeland, and in less than twenty days I leave for Cambodia. As Dogen Zenji says, "Time moves from present to past"--I already miss this place, this moment. The weeds and rocks here are dear to me. They call me back to my childhood and the wonder of being alive. A handful of dry grass is infinitely precious, irreplacable.

What will it be like to depart from familiarity for a year? I stare at the sun and sneeze.

Crickets sing on one side of me while a river of cars flows past on the other. I sit at the edge of certainty. Here, I know what a summer day is, when the sun rises and when the sun sets. But I don't know a monsoon, much less monsoon season.

I place my hand on the Earth and feel her warmth. Geologic time stretches fault lines and gopher holes into a landscape that rests peacefully in the present moment.

Worries now seem so distant, so useless. I touch the unexpectedly tender leaves of a sticky green weed. The stickiness lingers on my fingers as a momento of my country. I love my country but most of all I love my county, San Mateo, overfull with the history of the Miwok, the Franciscan monks, and white-tailed deer. And native plants, too numerous--too wonderful--to mention.

At home I'm packing my bags, my mind full of Cambodian history and Khmer phrases and anger and frustration about my work and great joy about my work. But here in the fresh air and with scores of ants crawling all over me the joy and frustration and Kampuchean battlefields are one. A sheriff just pulled over to check on me. Sometime I take a breath, feel the Earth beneath me, and realize that I'm having a wonderful day.