Longing for His Return

The moment he makes his presence known I stop - quite still. I listen and wait...breathless with anticipation...as if a lost lover has at last whispered my name. I've longed for his return, but is it really him? 

Of course it's him. How many bagpipe players do you know? 

Actually, I don't even know this one. But, each year at this time, as our low season rolls in, this man bids farewell to whatever chilly northern locale he calls home. He returns to Florida...and to me. He just doesn't know he's returning to me.

And I do wait for him with longing. Granted I might feel differently if he lived right next door, but as he lives one street and three houses away, what drifts towards me is the low and haunting sound of his bagpipes. 

He reminds me there are memories larger and older than my own. He stirs a wistfulness inside of me that, for whatever reason, is a part of my Florida existence. He's also a part of my holiday season.

It was on a particularly quiet New Year's Eve that my bagpipe player first serenaded me. The ball had dropped, the fireworks had faded and the new year had chosen to make its entrance shrouded in mist. I was sitting at the table on my back porch, alone and somewhat melancholy, pondering what a new year in Florida might bring. As I recall, I was also resisting the urge to avow anything resembling a New Year's resolution. 

And then I heard him. My first thought was how odd to hear such music in subtropic zone 10. But is that not the way of Florida? Was there ever a place so brimming with contradiction?

The mist, the quiet of the evening, and this gentleman's music...all came together in a shifting moment that was mine alone. My melancholy disappeared and I felt I could now welcome the new year I'd been holding at arm's length. I was suddenly so thankful for this man.

I'm sure he'd be happy to know how his playing affects a gal on the next block, but I think I like the romance the slightest bit of distance and mystery creates.

He called to me yesterday for the first time since last season. I was climbing the stairs to my front door and, as he always does, he stopped me dead in my tracks.

Welcome back, my darling. It's time for pumpkin pie.