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A late spring drizzle was misting the morning air
As Ann left Baltimore and began driving north.
Dawn had sneaked in a few hours earlier,
Making the white sky a little brighter over the bay.
She sighed to herself in somber anticipation
Of the tedious ten-hour ride ahead.
It had to be done, of course; she was an adult now.
And she and her car knew the way by heart
From past Thanksgivings and Christmases,
When they both had to be alert for sleet and black ice.
Now wonderful hues of wet green painted the landscape,
And it all looked odd. The same, but different.
The rain stopped, and Ann’s thoughts wandered as she left I-95
And took the New Jersey turnpike to avoid Philadelphia.
She debated and solved all the problems at work
And made mental to-do notes for her return.
The unthinkable that lay before her, she could not consider,
And she carefully locked it in a distant closet in her mind.
She watched instead for her favorite landmarks:
The Meadowlands stadiums, the Hudson from the upper deck,
The deer and the stone bridges of the Merritt Parkway,
The big blue termite of New England Pest.
And she made regular rest stops at familiar places
When she or the car needed something more to go on.
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At the peak of the Portsmouth bridge, the clouds thinned,
The sky grew blue, and Ann felt as though she were flying.
She quickly turned to catch a glimpse of the Atlantic,
And then read the sign out loud: “The way life should be.”
Something caught in her throat, and she choked back a cry:
She still had two more hours to drive.
How had college and work led her so far away?
What was a country girl like her doing in the city anyway,
A Mainer living below the Mason-Dixon line?
Had she really found comfort eight states south?
Why did some folks stay right where they started?
When do you recognize the place you need to be?
Not knowing the answers, Ann left the highway at Brunswick
And turned toward the coast – the mid-coast, they say.
Every curve and each rock she knew intimately now,
And as she hurried on, she was again the young girl Anastasia.
In sheer minutes, relatives and old friends would call on her,
And they would offer to help, knowing full well they could not.
Suddenly it was all too much; and she pulled over,
Turned off the radio and the air, and leaned out the window
To breathe in deep the pine and the salt and the clean;
And scattered beams from the lowering sun warmed her face.
With a heavy heart and wet cheeks but the start of a smile,
Ann eased out and once more followed the road home.
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