on losing the ruby slippers



Even though it's only August, the darkness waits that little bit longer before descending. The air is not as still and no longer has that hint of chill. The tropics are a funny place. Seasons are not defined by temperature, or by changing colours of trees or by frost and winds.

The reality is, there are no seasons, it's a life lived in perpetual stillness. Nothing changes. Nothing gives, nothing takes.

You look out the window and the new day is the same as the one before. The changes are indistinguishable to outsiders. To tourists and itinerants like myself. But I have been here before and the tropics secrets are no longer unknown to me. So I notice when the days start to become longer. I notice when the wind shifts course and I notice the new smells in the air.

And it's funny how, even though the days grow longer and therefore the nights shrink, that in my world, the nights are still so very long. An empty bed has a nasty habit of prolonging the hours of silence. An empty bed has a habit of keeping that slight chill in the air that little bit longer.

An empty bed reminds you that when half your heart is missing, no matter how well you know the secrets of the changing season, a place is never really home until your heart is whole again.

2009-08-04 8:02 p.m.