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It came to my attention last night that one year ago I was in the States. Steve remembered not me. He said - "oh its Jazz on the Lake on Sunday. I took Felix last year." And by the way, for any one interested, there is no lake here. There is a place called Zoo Lake. Its a pond. Its not much bigger than my parents house if you were to take the top floor and the basement and line them up with the ground floor. Actually, for a pond it is reasonably sized, but it is not a lake. And I have, very specifically been teaching Felix the difference. Yes, Felix, its called Zoo Lake, but its a pond. Its not big enough to be a lake. A lake is big, like the sea. This could of course lead me into another discourse, as I have adopted the British use of the word sea and this could be problematic for some of you. But you have to pick your battles and I choose to distinguish between ponds and lakes and Steve and the boys can keep their sea. And in any case, the first time I spent more than a heartbeat at the "ocean" was a few weeks in Australia - where, I'm not sure any more, but maintaining the links it does to British English, may in fact have been called a "sea".

But all of this is negligible, compared to the fact that last year I was home. In fact, 1 year ago last night I landed in Cleveland. My dad fetched us from the airport and we stopped at Arby's on the way home. The Arby's tasted like my apartment in Kent - I could actually taste good times and sad. I think it almost tasted like watching the same scene from Fight Club over and over and over again. Absolutely wonderful. And I got to my parents' house and basically ran from room to room - I can't be certain if I was looking for my stuff or if I was just remembering. Simple things can have such meaning.

The next day, a year ago today, was spent organising my life. I had to redo my drivers exam. Which wasn't really a mission, but I was a little uneasy seeing as how I drive a stick-shift on the wrong side of the road over here and ALL of the road signs and markings are completely different. But at least I can parallel park, which made the manoeuverability part much easier this time around. Anyhow, my mom, me and Oscar headed out to K-Mart after that escapade, where I just browsed around in disbelief and bought a few necessities for the kid. The rest of the afternoon was spent organising my rental car. Do you guys remember it? Not my style, but what an amazing "sweet" ride it was. And the minute I could, I negotiated my way down to Coventry. I almost can't believe I still knew how to get there from Mentor. Although I don't know why I should be so surprised. I can literally see every bend in MLKJ Drive and every shop front going up little Italy. I think I could just make myself cry thinking about it.

And then to see the faces I've been longing to see, that I still long to see. To sit in the bar that I think of every time I open a beer. To 'run' around Cleveland Hts like it is 'my' playground. The sights, the sounds, the smells, the memories. One year ago today. Its not like I could forget, but how can one night mean so much? Well, briefly put, it is my world. Most nights I dream of it, every day I have to shake it off, like dust from a rug and sweep it out of the corners of my mind. And I have to constantly push thoughts out of my head to keep up with life at all. Oh to be home...

But hey, its not all bad - a few days ago, Steve's mom called to confirm that we were joining them in Durban again this year. Its not around the corner yet, but its coming up. I like Durban, mainly because up here in Joburg, the air is dry and biting. Down in Durban, the humidity and the heat feel like it could be an August day in Cleveland. This, of course, is because of the sea. And, well, "sea" is for cookie, and thats good enough for me.