Auld Lang Syne

"Auld Lang Syne" was just a song at the end of the holiday songbook until the night of my wedding. It was a tradition to sing it at New year, but the sing song melody and the unfamiliar words meant that it was sung just because it was there.

My husband asked the Scottish band, Hogeye Navvy, to play "Auld Lang Syne" to conclude the wedding reception. He told them to play it in dirge time and I heard it then for the first time with all the pain of leaving and letting go. No doubt the feeling was compounded by the enormity of my decision to leave family, friends, home, country and career behind for an unknown life in a foreign place. I realized that I would never see again many of the friends there that night.

Even those closest to me for whom not even an ocean would be too big an obstacle must feel the separation, the distance, the difference. I remember the feel of the wool shoulder of the jacket as the tears of fatigue and the weight of the distance bore down on me. Now I can never hear the song without feeling it to my very bones.

As I prepare to go back again after two months here, I realize that it does not get any easier saying goodbye no matter how much I practice it. Nor should it get easier. So I busy myself with packing and the trivia of leave taking as the lines come into my head, "we'll take a cup of kindness here for auld lang syne." So pull out the old song book and sing it to yourself but very very slowly and then when you've really heard the words, give an old friend a call and hug the ones closest to you.