Collaborative speed blogging

How do you experience being in a new place? Suburbia/ city/ country? State to state? Country to country?


I watch my dad as he stands on the back porch, staring out on our small boxed in backyard as if it is the rambling hills of pasture he grew up on. He doesn't know I'm watching through the kitchen window and he sways back on his heels and sighs. I wonder how many times he's woken up and wished he could stare out into vast green instead of our rotting back fence. I wonder how many times he's considered taking the turn off the highway on his way home from work and heading back to the little weatherboard house by the river. I wonder if he feels happy. I wonder if I might feel happier out there, with a little more room to breathe. But I doubt it.
He's had time to adapt, I know. But do the shadows of your old life ever leave you? It's been almost two decades since he moved away from that vast paddock of green rolling hills and warm mornings. Life is good now. Just different.
He loves to tell stories of growing up on the farm. There's a passion in his voice as he talks about his brother breaking bones from childhood recklessness, that time they almost got washed away by the river, the creatures they found in the grass. But there's more passion in the stories that led him to the life he has today. I know that he's happy here. So why do I wonder if he misses it?
I find myself daydreaming about those stories, wanting the freedom that he had.
I have never known wide open space, an empty sky, life intertwined with nature. He tells me that the beauty of the countryside can never compare to life. City life may be convenient, it may have jaw dropping skyscrapers, the bustle of progress and activity, people and community everywhere to help and enjoy life with. But I think through all the crammed space and activity he sees and emptiness.
This emptiness, could it be a catalyst to a new sense of freedom? Can he seek other options or find himself asking us questions to help us? Should we see his struggles and help him? I want to ask him more questions about the struggles of the city. I feel like something happened that day i came back from school, there was a man who came by, wearing a suit. He held a briefcase and diligently made Dad sign numerous sheets of paper. I watched confused from the window but failed to comprehend what was happening or who this person was. His nostalgic attitude became more prevalent since that day. I get up fill the kettle, the sound of water being the only reminder that I am here. Other than that, silence. I flick the switch and wait for the boiling to begin. I lean against the doorframe and continue to watch dad. I see him reach to the back of his head, stroke his neck and breathe. The gesture of a man weatherd by his life. The water simmers. "Dad, you wanna cuppa?" I shout. He turns around, he is crying, the water has boiled.

"Got a call about nan," I spoke aloud, and I can't believe I did that for her.
"End of the rope."
"End of the line, sure. Maybe I could have stopped him, but he was already too far away."
"What do you mean by that?"
I mean, he... And I didn't say this, but truth be told,
"I wanted him to die. Yes that's right," I said, a look matched these words,  "I wanted it for many years now, and there's not a damn thing I could've done to change it, okay?"
She held palms up, "Okay." And what was said, was done. I delved into my nightmare over again today, and that's why I'm telling you this. I became him.