In 1833, Emerson returned from his voyage to Europe. By 1836, he had married again, moved to Concord, published Nature, and celebrated the birth of his son Waldo. I was now just a couple of days from home, and that brought up many uncomfortable questions:
What had I been through? What did it mean? How was I different? Was I different?
And what now? And how? And where? And with whom?
I had to begin my life again. But I had no answers.
After uncounted hours and miles of pensive preoccupation, I spotted a billboard. Set back a bit from the road, the sign was for the Russell Stover candy factory. Immediately my mind was flooded with memories.
My grandmother’s name was Daisy. Sometime in the Sixties, a blood vessel burst behind her optic nerve and she went almost entirely blind. I became her seeing-eye kid. On game days, we would sit together listening to Washington Senator’s baseball games on radio, consoling ourselves for the inevitable loss with the oval delights of Russell Stover chocolates. She always had a stash, because her beau (as she called him) would send for her birthday or holiday or just whenever boxes of assorted candies.
And when I saw that billboard, suffused in childhood memories, I suddenly felt sure that everything was all right. The abrupt change of mood was astonishing to say the least. Maybe it was the proximity to that much chocolate. That my sign from the universe was an actual sign only made it better. Buddha smiles.
I got as far as Lawrence on the eastern side of Kansas before stopping for the night. By late the next morning, I had reached Missouri, once again headed east on I-70. But this time, I knew, I was heading home.
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