Do you suppose

that by merely thinking about someone you somehow draw them closer to you. Maybe humans have some sort of telepathic link between them that scientist know nothing about.

Just the other day I had grandma's kitchen in my mind. As I tried to write about it, instead, what came out was more an image of my uncles all gathered around the kitchen table. That was not part of the original mental image, and I just sort of wrote it off as one of those mental-association things. Where one thought leads to another, and then another. Or maybe just the fact that a grandmother's kitchen is one of those places of familiar comfort and gathering.

Either way, Friday morning, at the butt-crack of dawn, Dad calls me on my cell as I'm dropping J off at daycare to inform me that Daryl had shown up the night before. No phone call, no nothing, just there, on the front step, sunburned, bedraggled, tired.

To know Daryl is a tough thing to do. He's quiet, shy, reclusive. There have been times when I've traveled home to Tennessee where he hasn't even come downstairs to say hello. For him to journey over 1000 miles without even a phonecall. Weird, to say the least.

We may never know the story of the true reason he took off like that. It wouldn't be out of the question that he's in some sort of trouble. Or maybe it's just a midlife crisis sort of thing. But here he is, with no plans.

I chatted with him over lunch on Friday. Apparently he's been in town for over two weeks. Just caught a Greyhound bus to wherever, washed up on the beach here and that's where he stayed, sleeping under the cover of sea oats, eating whatever came his way, drinking copious amounts of beer. He even had some sort of job for a few days. Construction of some sort.

One afternoon, venturing out into the ocean for a swim, he was caught in a nasty crash of wave and slammed against some sort of rocky protrusion. He's bruised from mid-thigh to the small of his back. He laid on the beach, not moving for two days, thinking he'd broken his hip or leg. Finally, able to hobble to the road, he caught a cab and showed up on his brother's doorstep.

Strange, indeed.

Why would a handsome man in his early 40's decide to voluntarily live the hobo life? Just take off and leave everything behind? I can't imagine.

Sure, I've had the urge a time or two to just take off. Maybe it's something in our family blood. Some convoluted genetic flaw that makes us want to just run off when things get tough. The only thing I know for sure is this: I come from weird, weird stock.