Homecoming

He was lean, work-hardened, weathered, tired from the long journey, and wearing a shirt woven by a woman in the tribe he was working with along the cordillera in Panama. His toenails were rough and broken and his feet wide, like those of the men of the tribe, the ones who wore only sandals if they wore shoes of any kind (when not wearing the rubber snake boots for cutting monte). A bright blue Peace Corps cap gave him the look of someone part of something, the logo conveying a friendly authority. The new cat carrier held one of his treasures from two years of service: a likeable, gregarious, stray cat with a heart shape on his flank. The cat, Wilson, named after the famous volleyball in Castaway, seemed glad to meet the reception crew gathered at the base of the stairs at the airport. Sean and Wilson had caught us off guard, having arrived twenty minutes early. We improvised our rowdy performance of homecoming. I ran the applause clackers; Kemper displayed his hairy cleavage; Emily rocked her Mormon mission sign; Kyle offered up the hundred-ounce Big Gulp and Twinkie; Megan put on her cat mask, while the rest of us did our little performance. It flopped, but that didn't matter. Explanations of the silly signs could come later. It was time to embrace, to celebrate, to gaze into the eyes of a freshly minted man, an open, human, work-in-progress; It was time to witness the alchemical change radiating from this person I used to know as a child, to honor his undertaking the journey of compassion and action -- all while catching a wild, rogue wave of joy.