Home

From time to time, I get homesick, and when that happens I search for the Google Earth icon, on my computer screen, tucked way back in the right corner. I press it and within seconds the entire planet fills up the screen. Gently I maneuver, with my mouse, rolling over oceans and continents until I find it.

Where Latitude 37N crisscross longitude 122W, lays my hometown, where I lived for twenty years.

I zoom in, amazed every time by the barren landscape, and how small the town looks, almost entirely camouflaged by the desert around it. Not more than a dozen of streets, claiming an existence on a plateau, hanging onto the edge of a steep cliff, overlooking an ocean of rolling hills and deep canyons. It seems that any tiny shudder of Mother Nature will toss them right into oblivion within seconds.

I hold my breath, and sigh with relief when I spot it. My home, still there, facing the long narrow street and backing against the deep ravine. With a flash of memory I picture myself standing next to the large dining room windows, in the morning, watching the sunrise, flaming hot sphere, rising above the Edom mountain range, lightning the monotonous browns with million shades of orange.

One moment of precious memory, and with a blink of an eye I am being transformed back to my desk, looking with a slight resentment at the blue and white, striped icon, blinking...