Call it a rude a awakening, but a week ago, I was standing up to my waist in crystal clear salt water, warm enough to bathe in, under 80 degree temps and sunny skies the likes of which we rarely see in Rochester, and then, it was as if I was so suddenly and so cruelly plucked from my idyllic dream and dumped waist deep (or nearly) into a frigid, dank, icy, tundra. It couldn't have been more ironic, stepping off the plane just after midnight, wearing a winter coat and a hat with "Culebra, Puerto Rico" emblazoned on it, and I was greeted by a slightly more bundled up airport employee on the jetway with the a sudden flash of recognition. "Culebra!" he uttered with gusto, referring to the tiny island off the eastern coast of the main island where I sunned myself and danced about in sparkling aquamarine water a day earlier. "I'm from there!" he said. I eyed his still dark complexion and bright smile, as I passed him, feeling too sleepy and depressed to give much of a response. I smiled back as I mustered a mental picture of this seemingly mythical place that only a few thousand people are fortunate enough to call home and could not help but think, and you left that to come here?

It's funny how getting away for a week to a place like Puerto Rico can leave even a land of milk and honey such as Rochester lacking luster upon returning. In all candor, I must say, though it is hard to come back, this place, despite its many flaws, has been the only home I've ever really known, and it is where my family, and my wife's family resides, which would make it hard to leave permanently. But one can't help but dream of a bit different life in a place so unlike anything we have here.

The trip, by all accounts, was an absolute godsend for all involved. I felt extremely privileged to be there, and to have a role in bringing my mother in law back home for the first time in more than two decades, not to mention, the fact that we made the trip as a family. And of course, to be able to document the whole thing, was magical for me. There were so many moments that moved me and just left me with an  enormous smile plastered across my face at times, and other times, tears forming at the corners of my eyes. 

It could not have been more poignant when we arrived at the house where Lucy had grown up, and she took one look at it, turned away and said, "I think I'm going to cry", to which her nephew Jose, or as we all call him Tio (uncle) Chegui, embraced her and said simply, "Welcome home." It was a homecoming for him as well, coming from Boston to meet us in the place where he spent some of his formative years as well, growing up in that same house. It provided the opportunity for him to reunite with his own father, who he had not seen in a number of years. 

From the recognition of old haunts, to the surprise at changes that have occurred in intervening years, it was a journey filled with revelations and a renewed sense of connection to something they had long forgotten about. We parted ways with the island vowing to return soon, and not allow another decade or two to pass until the next trip back. 

Now comes the difficult work of sifting through all of that material to carve the rest of the story from its rich narrative texture. More to come soon.