if the impression is real or imagined and do not care. Rolling an imaginary morsel over my tongue, smelling it from within my mouth, I slowly allow its goodness to warm me from the inside out. I recall Mama kneading the dough, preparing our Sabbath meal on Friday. Tomorrow is Friday; I wonder if Mama is kneading dough somewhere in Poland.
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Searching for a place to rest my weary mind, I shut my eyes tightly, willing myself to see Mama's face in our kitchen. Like benevolent spirits, I conjure up the smells, the sounds of home. Mama asking me to bring in more wood for the fire; Papa's pipe smoke wafting in from the parlor where he studies the texts. Like fingers, the mountain peaks surrounding Tylicz pull me into their embrace. I drift between the realms of sleep and waking until I am running barefoot across the field beckoned by the voices of my past. When everything else has changed, one's sole comfort lies in what is, what was, familiar.
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Escaping into the world of dreams, I imagine that I can see Mama standing at the door of our farmhouse with her lantern lit, watching out for me, calling my name.
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The grass is wet and cool, springing between my toes. I run down the hill toward home.
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I'm coming, Mama,
I answer her bobbing light. But the soft, flickering flame of her lantern mutates into a searing glare that burns my eyes.
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Disoriented and cold, I shake myself out of a stupor. Searchlights pass over our restless bodies. It was a dream, nothing but a waking dream. I feel tired, depressed, and overcome in these foreign surroundings. My mind takes the mental images of my past and begins weaving them through my subconscious.
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I fidget with my plaid skirt. Like a wave receding from the shore, the past leaves me lonely and forlorn.
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