Where Have I Been?

Last night I sat on the patio in my brother-in-law’s back yard.  The Mississippi pines swayed broad and hushed loud, pushed about by a rare, southern wind.  Small patches of black sky hovered above the tall, swaying canopy above me.  The smell of pine needles flew strong about the air.  It was a beautiful moment.  

The moment dug deep inside me, past myself, to that deepest part.  I thought of my Daddy Jake again.  I imagined how many breezes he had felt.  I imagined my Nanna standing beneath a slightly younger sun, it’s warmth caressing her tiny face and hands.  The people kept coming.  It wasn’t faces I saw, it was as if I embodied them for a moment, if but in my dreams, or perhaps it is the way around.  Whichever way it goes, there are people so a part of us, and us them, that we take them everywhere.  Everywhere I go, those people in my heart are also.  Nothing is experienced without them.  Everything is shared with them.

Yet, until last night, I had never stopped to wonder about where I have been carried.  What smells, sounds, or sights have conjured me inside someone else, reminded them of me, or made them feel my presence, though I am far away?  Perhaps it is in the swelling of an orchestra, or the sight of home, or perhaps even someplace new, and the overwhelming desire to show and share such a place with me is what swells inside.  Where have I been?  Where have the hearts of others taken me?  And, where will I go? 

Most of all, I wonder…

In whose hearts am I being carried?