Postcards Coming Soon

I moved from New York to New Orleans four days ago. Last week, when I asked my dearest childhood friend if he would miss me, he replied, “Not more than usual; I’m used to your absence, since you’re never here anyway.” He laughed. “So, not really.” Just the response I was hoping for. I deserved it though, I knew, and I pouted through a grin.

I attended college in Philadelphia; I worked for one summer in Ghana, another in Nicaragua, and, one semester I studied in Egypt. I spent many breaks from school in the country and sometimes New Jersey; once I drove down to Texas, made a quick stop in Florida, and arrived in Louisville in the middle of one night in July. I always sent postcards after receiving voicemail messages inquiring whether I was dead or just missing. One friend implied it was all the same to him.

New Yorkers are friends of the most sensitive sort.

I would miss my dear childhood friend, I knew, and many others, as I miss the friends who stayed in Ghana, Philadelphia, Nicaragua, and wherever else. So why would I leave? Why do I constantly live my life with the single constant of inconsistency?

There are so many people and places to know and love, and the one never replaces another. A heart need not pour any contents out to make room for newfound love; like frozen water (the root of life) the heart expands. Before you suggest this metaphor implies I have a cold, cold heart, I ask you to remember the poetic light E.E. Cummings shed on modern science:

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I am filled with wistfulness of the most agreeable sort: I miss you all because I love you, and I carry you with me, always.