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Stuart Revercomb

Stuart Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.

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"Thursday's Fare"

Shhh!!! Quiet ! Don't let anybody hear. I've got news for you: We live in paradise!

This statement comes from someone who is not the traveler he used to be -- at least not when it comes to going to major cities. Nowadays I get creamed by the pace and inhumanity of New York, Chicago or San Francisco. I know there must be wonderful people living equally wonderful lives in the various boroughs of these fair metropolitan cities, but when I go, I rarely have time to meet many of them. The thrill of travel pales to the joy of arriving home. Most everyone else I know responds much the same. Which says quite a bit about life in this little corner of the world.

Perhaps it just comes down to what one is used to.

Recently I visited the great state of California for the first time. I arrived in San Francisco from Charlotte, N.C., in just under five hours, which to a history- conscious, small town kind of guy like me was reason enough to celebrate. Five hours? Less than a lifetime ago you couldn't load the mule in five hours for the two-day trip to the east side of Ironto. Doesn't anyone else think about these things?

On arrival at the jetway, everyone on board immediately stood up as if they were going somewhere in a hurry -- and then of course stood there looking quietly impatient. By their expressions I can assure you that nary a one of them was pondering the magic by which they had just been shuttled from one side of the continent to the other. But I just HAD to remind someone of this miracle. So I picked an aging Rastafarian drummer who had ridden next to me sipping some god- awful smelling alcoholic concoction the whole way. He was wearing the colorful green and red Rasta-Dude hat and sported about 72 pounds of beads beneath his dreadlocks.

"You know," I said with as little Southwest Virginia by way of North Carolina, and Connecticut accent as possible, "We just did in five hours what it used to take people less than a lifetime ago five months to do."

He grunted. Kind of. At least I think he did.

So much for the cultural exchange. "Peace to you," I said. "Good Luck with that fear of flying thing." He wandered off bleary eyed to see the family he hadn't seen in 21 years, but he didn't seem very excited.

I found San Francisco to be just what everyone told me it would be: beautiful. But from great distances, when one could take in the bay, the mountains and the skyline together. Up close the city was "big" in the usual sense with enough interesting late 18th century architecture in the mix to make it a neat place to explore. But it was also crowded and frenetic and seedy enough in other places to make one weary with caution.

The Marina district and historical Wharf area were most interesting, if not a little touristy, and there were numerous trendy little specialty shops that the wives certainly would have enjoyed if they had been along. (We're talking mortgage payment territory here fellas -- take 'em to wine country, if at all possible.) But this was business we were conducting, so we lamented heavily their absence. Somehow we managed to get over our grief and shortly thereafter discovered the availability of fresh brewed Steel Head Ale and Dungeness Crabs at a place called Nick's Crab and Oyster. In the Pacific, the whole food chain is bigger and these crabs would have sent the largest Chesapeake Blue running for cover. My friend Mark and I availed ourselves with enthusiasm. We very much liked this part of California.

The next day we toured the coast, heading south to Carmel and Monterey Bay. The rugged shoreline was inspiring to be sure, but the beaches were few and often inaccessible due to the rocks and cliffs that rise sharply from the Pacific. Great for a view, but not wanting so much to be explored unless one had the gear and experience of a Class I climber. The land we traversed while venturing inland from the coast offered extraordinary soil for the Del Monte company to grow its fruits and vegetables, but the surrounding hills were barren and brown. The native vegetation was scrubby and short. We had a hard time identifying most of the vegetables under production, but we did manage to ascertain that avocados had found a good home here. It really wasn't a bad place to investigate and travel, through, but a quick memory of Western Virginia in her spring apparel was enough to bring on a real case of homesickness. The words rose inevitably to our lips: "You know, this is a nice place to visit, but ... "

In our travels that day Mark and I reflected on what a Californian, armed with nothing but text book and conversational knowledge of Virginia, would have to say about traveling through Franklin County for the first time after a visit to Washington or Richmond. We surmised that their feelings would not be unlike those we experienced.

"Man, look at that red clay they call dirt. Can you imagine having to cut all this grass. What do they do with all the leaves? Look at those big tall stalky plants. Is that tobacco?"

I suppose somewhere along the way as youth fades away, our "used to's" catch up with us. We develop a sense of home that is dependent on where we've grown up and grown older. I expect these feelings of homeland are deeper in our hearts than even we realize, and only when and if it were ever threatened would we really know how strong our attachments are. Some of the complications surrounding struggles in other lands might come a bit clearer for us. Ask a farmer turned militiaman in Afghanistan, Chechneya or in an America under siege what home is to him -- and I imagine that any one answer would ring collectively true for all: "I was born here. My family and friends are here. My father died here. This is my home."

In a greater sense our heart's true home is, for most of us, not of this world. It is in that "some other place" -- that place before the womb and after the cloud of death passes -- that is present deep in all our memories and dreams. For many of us the birth we celebrate this season is the gift that brings the true joy of paradise -- even in the here and now, in this often distant and foreign and hurting world.

May his peace be with you now and always, no matter how you know him or what distant shore you call home.