I’m back now…
my second home is now
4000 miles away again…
I’m back below the clouds…
I feel like I am a man of two minds:
one, a proud Englishman;
and another, someone who feels at home
in Georgia, in the United States of America,
where there is more opportunity
to do anything, at any time of the day,
and at any given moment
as there are lanes on a highway.

I’m back where everybody drives on the left,
instead of on the right…
I’m back where I was born –
however, there isn’t a moment
when I do not miss the light of my day,
the light of my night,
the light of my life,
back there where you can see
fireflies flying and glowing
against the stars of a twilight sky.

I’m back wearing jeans –
however, only days before
and for two weeks-straight,
I had been wearing shorts
morning, noon, and night,
and getting touched on the skin
by the heat and the light of the sun…
I’m back walking down familiar paths
and sitting in the same chairs
in the same places that I know every inch of –
however, though I am awake and writing
here in England, I am also projecting myself
back to Georgia with Melissa
and dreaming along with her
and surrounded by the scent of a burning candle
that smells like coffee
when its wick burns and its wax melts.

I’m back where there are not as many drive-throughs
as there are in the US;
here in the UK, for example,
if we want to withdraw some money from our bank-account,
or if we want to pick up a prescription from a pharmacy,
we have to actually walk to somewhere –
however, in the US you can get money,
you can pick up your prescription,
as easily and as speedily
as you can order take-out food,
and you don’t even have to leave
the comfort of the driving-seat of your car.

Both the US and the UK share many things in common,
but there are many wonderful differences
that set them apart…
we have different names for the same things:
in the US, people seem to find more time
to celebrate and remember the liberty
and the freedoms that they are
constitutionally entitled to…
both the US and the UK even have
different forms of humour
and things that they find funny,
but both the US and the UK know
the true joy that comes with sharing experiences
together as friends and as a family,
and why it is important to smile and to laugh.

Both the US and the UK have for centuries now
shared a “special-relationship” with one-another,
and from my perspective and from my experience
our commonalities have no limit
to their importance and worth…
to me, both the US and the UK
are two sides of the same coin,
they are two halves of the same heart,
and I feel and I know with all my soul
that the US and the UK are bound to each-other
in more ways than could ever be described –
and when I am away from both the UK and the US
there are things and there are people
that I miss more than others,
but it is my knowledge
of what makes both the US and the UK
so special that always makes me smile
and always brings me back down to Earth.