Deja vu is the sensation of having been somewhere before, physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, wherever "somewhere" is. And I have been here before more than once. The only thing that strikes me as unique is that this kind of "happening" usually happens with a friend. Faye Patrick and I are friends. We recently shared a cup of coffee and small talk. We shared how we felt about the times we live in, how we felt about family, friends and this "NOW" time of our personal life journeys.

"I used to be able to do the split," I said. Faye smiled as I mentioned that the split was part of the infamous Parisian dance routine known as the cancan.

Faye didn’t know that much about the cancan, but she thought that at one time she was pretty good at dancing the polka. I sort of mentioned that maybe I was curious enough about still being able to do the split that I might even try. "You’ll try, and I’ll probably have to call 911," Faye responded.

The coffee was great and so was the conversation, which inevitably took us down the path of memory lane. Age does make one nostalgic every now and then. Inevitably, the question arose: "You ever feel like going home again?" Perhaps it is a question that comes up more frequently with me because my native country is so far away. Do I think of going home again? Yes, in the spring when the lilac is in bloom, and when I open my computer and find myself on the KULTUR website and am inevitably face to face with the purchase of a new DVD of an old opera: Nostalgia.

Faye had her own kind of memories that made her want to go home. We were both transplants to the Ozarks and we do recall fondly an existence of the lives we led before we married and raised children. And it was Faye who asked, "Do you think anybody can ever go home again?"

I suppose the term "split" meant more to me than a dance routine. My concept of "home" was pretty well split in the same way. Home was that big city on the Rhine with all the culture and splendor that came with big city life, at least for me. My childhood days being a small part of a large theatre, the outings at the castle near the Rhine, that ancient little observatory with a reflecting telescope that somehow, like magic, made an image on a little marble table. Once upon a time, I gazed at an image on that little marble table of a small street down below, crowded with apartment houses. A lady looked out a second-story window at the street below. She accidentally caused a small metal container to fall off the window sill, landing on a passerby below. Maybe it was the responses of the lady in the window and the man below, maybe it was because it was so totally unexpected that I thought it was so totally funny. I laughed myself to tears and I still smile when I think of it. Mannheim is always home to me for all the adventures and all the love that came with being there.

Then there was the other "home." That was the village of my mother’s birth. That one comes to mind with the scent of new-mown hay, the sound of cattle mooing, and flocks of ducks and geese heading home to roost. Grandmama always comes to mind when I think of the village. She imbued me with reverence for all life, be it plant or animal or human. Even the rocks were alive, Grandmama told me. It would be decades before I became fully aware of life that existed in minerals.

Grandmama has a way of asking the right questions for a productive response. It’s usually my mouth that moves to the prompting of her mind. So exactly when does anyone want to go home again? Faye wasn’t so sure about that question. I took the lead. I wanted to go home in the spring, when the lilac is in bloom. It is the lilac that speaks to me. I want to go home when the fog is like wispy fingertips reaching out for me in the car and eventually enveloping car and driver in cotton-soft silence. I want to go home when the computer takes me to the National Theater in Mannheim and I see "Aida" being presented with Placido Domingo featured as the lead tenor Radames. I like Placido Domingo, but I love opera. I love the timeless, classic music of composers like Verdi, Wagner, Brahms, and Mozart. It is that love that draws me home.

It is also love that makes Faye want to go home. It is her love for friends and family. As we grow older, many of our friends and family move on beyond life as we know it. I suppose that in that sense, you really can’t go home again, because all that which means "home" is no longer there.

I still go home. My travel companions are my trusty computer and the reflection of my mind. Clarence and Gerry carefully guided the creation of this work of art. Consequently, my computer contains all the elements needed to fulfill my needs.

My need to go home originates in the very heart and soul of me. My soul does not depend on physically being wherever home is geographically. My computer supplies me with those soul-based things like music, like pictures, and like Grandmama, who reigns in my heart as the matriarch that she is. ICON educates me and allows me to grow and go when it comes to computer competence.

Faye and I have moved on from the topic of home to the topic of the recent Graphics SIG meeting.

"Amazing," I tell her. "It takes only a dozen or so pictures to create a slide show. I must have a hundred or so skunk pictures, and the information that goes with it is great.

I wonder if anyone would be interested in the private social activities of four orphaned skunks. It was the littlest skunk, the runt of the litter that I remember fondly. I named her Au contraire. She always disagreed, but she did so lovingly. Only once did she threaten with emphasis. That is the picture that remains in my mind and on my computer. That is the part of "home" that I visit with equal satisfaction.