Will

i receive an unexpected text from an old friend in my hometown near midnight. he is on the opposite coast so it isn't quite 9pm for him. he wanted to check in on the one person he knows in New York, a person whose face he has not seen in nearly a decade. 

he tells me small facts about his family, his wife and children whom i know nothing about; the instruments the kids are learning to play, his wife earning a 2nd Master's Degree. 

"Also, I am still working for my Dad in the orange grove."

i read these simple words and remember the smell of the place, the road leading up to it through palm trees, of being stung by a bee for the very first time while driving passed it on the narrow two-lane road. the bee had flown in through the passenger-side window and stung me in the face. this road was flanked by a deep irrigation ditch. unable to pull over until we got passed the stop sign at the far end of this long road, my friend was finally able to pull the stinger out of my throbbing cheek, it pumping its poison into me that entire time.

my eyes stung with tears  being suddenly reminded of his father's orange grove and i can tell you it is something beyond sentimentality, something well beyond nostalgia or yearning, that brought such a reaction on: it was the reminder that Beauty and Tenderness persist... have persisted in the exact same place this entire time that i have been gone.