The Search for Mira

Dear John,

 

It's been a beautiful Labor Day - cool, dry, deep blue sky with some clouds. I mowed this afternoon, and started thinking. That's the problem with mowing - it gives me an hour and a half to think, and that's how I get myself in trouble.

 

For the last couple of days, I've been humming "Mira,", from Carnival. You know the song - you took me to see the play a couple of years ago, and goodness knows you've heard me singing the music to it enough over the years.


I come from the town of Mira, beyond the bridge of St. Claire.
I guess you've never heard of Mira. It's very small, but still, it's there.
They have the very greenest trees, and skies as bright as flame.
But what I liked the best in Mira was everybody knew my name.

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that? Everybody knew my name.

A room that's strange is never cozy; a place that's strange is never sweet.
I want to have a chair that knows me and walk a street that knows my feet.
I'm very far from Mira now, and there's no turning back.
I want to find a place, I have to find a place where everything can be the same.
A street that I can know, and places I can go where everybody knows my name.

Can you image that? Can you imagine that? Everybody knew my name.


The song makes me long for something, and I've been wondering what. This town is as close to Mira as you can get. I have everything the song desires, but it's still not Mira. Somewhere in the yard west of the house I figured it out. Mira isn't a geographical place; it's a place of the heart. In the play, it's the last place where Lily's life was normal and everything was alright. And that's what I long for - a return to the time when everything was good and I was happy. Mira, for me, is having you.

So the song is right - there is no turning back. I'm not young and naïve like Lily, so I know I can't make everything the same again. I have to do what she did: grow up and learn to be happy without Mira. I'm not going to run off, join the circus, and fall in love with the puppeteer. But I'll find my way in this strange new world. I doubt that I'll ever stop longing for Mira, though. Having had and lost it, the empty space will always be there.

Longing for you,
Joan.