No going back. A truism. Is that even a word? (Yes) There is no going back to the way things were. I discovered that when I returned to my own house after two weeks away visiting my son and his family in a house I had never seen before, a new residence for that family in a different California city where I had visited them a year past.

True, I had returned to my home.The building stood proudly in the bright summer sun. What joy I felt in stepping up to unlock the door! Had I always felt so elated whenever I entered? Inside the opened door the air smelled different. The space felt different. I was different. I was refreshed, renewed. Days older, waist thicker, skin browner, toenails brighter. I reflected on picking up the threads of a past routine to weave them again.

Alas. That was not to be. Those threads were severed, ended as it were, never to be continued. I wander in my back yard, in the shade of tall trees, in the shadow of thick shrubs. The ground is strewn with leaves torn by ferocious desert winds from the cottonwood and chestnut tree next door. Reality escapes me. My mind’s eye sees the Pacific fog, banks of lilies of the Nile, palm trees and thick leaved shrubs, grass shorn by lawn keepers, and birds sipping from exotic blossoms. My mind’s ear hears the coo of displaced pigeons, dogs yapping while kids play, and most unbelieveable – a long time drummer, precussion teacher, beating on metal dustpans and galvanized garbage cans.

Recalled is a day at Universal studios where a tour dredged up memories of long ago movie sets and stars that never age, a tour that revealed the secrets of fearful scenes of fire, monsters, and wrecked machinery; a display of daring dives and water play that sprinkled a delighted audience; a trip through Shrek land where spiders crept around the ankles, seats lerched, and fairies sprayed our faces; lunch of roasted ears of succulent corn; and the expertise of drummers illustrating percussion on peculiar receptacles noway resembling the drums in an ordinary parade of marching bands.

Why return to routine with those images and sounds foremost in my mind? Former routines are no longer simply routines. How could they be simple? Each will be overlain or underlain with the experiences now resounding in memories. A familiar setting but a changling will spice the routines with new insights and renewed energy.

A return. Not going back. Think about it. It can never be.

Naomi Sherer