Missed the boat

I grew up in Hawaii and lived in various places in the USA. Then in 1979 I moved to Australia and lived there for many years. Australia is a beautiful country, but I missed home. A few years ago I was living near the water in Melbourne, and my wife and I would go for walks in the evening. One evening during the pandemic, I took this image of a big passenger boat leaving the bay. I felt a wave of sadness come over me as I watched the boat disappear over the horizon, and moments later the sun set. It was a foreshadowing of what was to come. Over the next few months the pandemic lockdowns got crazier and crazier, and one day my wife and I looked at each other and didn’t say anything – but we both knew the time had come to leave Australia. She had grown up in South Africa and had no family left there. All my brothers and my son were in the USA. Two weeks later we were on a plane to Miami. Now when I see this image, I feel very emotional, because it reminds me of the lonely times I had in Australia, and the peace I’ve found being back home again. As Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, “There’s no place like home.”