The Different Familiar

How different can it be? It has,
after all, assumed a routine of its
own, albeit confronted one week
of every year for decades, and so
while randomly different from the
everyday encounters and practised
expectations that occur fifty-one
weeks of each year, there remains
yet an aura of the distance of
recollection, a hazy, yet distinct
nudge of memory. One embarked
upon and accosted what has become
a venture that once was quite an
adventure, takes on the role of habit.
So then, we rent the same cottage
from the same proprietors, pack
the same belongings, set out on
the same journey, seek out familiar
exposure to the natural world,
take the same hiking paths,
identify the same flora less fauna,
then reminisce and take deep pleasure
in the flood of comfort our emotions
endow us with. When we drive a
recalled direction, stop at remembered
sources of interest, the proprietors
enquire how we have been in the
intervening year. Life, as a measure
of satisfying familiarity in leisure.