Strange, what I leave behind.

Some might say I’m a city snob. Urban to the core, without a rural inclination or an ounce of patience for the pace and/or trivialities of a suburban or slower-paced life.

Some might say I’m one hard sonofabitch. An emotionally guarded, frequently unavailable prick with a difficult-to-breach outer shell and nary a nurturing bone in his body.

Well, to those people I say (after a resounding “suck it,” of course) you should have seen Uncle P/O out in rural Kentucky this weekend. I slowed my pace to that of the rolling (and sweltering) countryside around me. I nurtured in ways I forgot (or maybe even didn’t know) that I could. I gooed. I gaahed. I kissed and I hugged. I made silly faces and silly noises, and melted when my little charge made several unsolicited attempts at what we all agreed was a form of “Uncle P/O.” I was touched by what seemed to be frequent imitations of things I did for his amusement. Things that, upon reflection, I now realize I got from my grandfather, and that must have been lurking somewhere in the depths of some boarded up shack in the shanty town of my memory.

And for the usual reasons, as well as these new ones, it was with a heavy heart that I left there this morning. It’s amazing how being blissfully comfortable somewhere so outside of your usual comfort zone can serve to center and affirm. It’s amazing how people who are so different in so many ways can be so strikingly similar in so many others and can come together and do so much good in such a short period of time.

But damn, it’s good to be back.