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In the age of portable communications and high speed cable internet, land lines are becoming increasingly obsolete. Indeed, Kevin and I do not have one here in Australia, although we do have three mobile phones, one cell phone, and a Skype account.

A phone number seems an odd entity to serve as a repository for sentimentality, yet I was choked with emotion when, several months ago, my mother disconnected the service she had had for over 30 years. The musical chimes of those digits still echo loudly in my head, and although I have not been at the end of that dial tone for over two decades, all of my childhood friends still know that number by heart. More than just an electrical connection to the outside world, over the years, it seemed to take on a personality of its own. Having moved to California from Ohio with roommates, the phone was listed under the name of 'D. O’Rourke', and my mother had never seen any reason to update this information after Delphine moved out. Somewhere in the world there is a very naughty man named Dan O’Rourke, and for many years, we could gamble that any calls received during the dinner hour were from bill collectors or private detectives. Those calls became a running gag in our household, and curiously, I find myself missing them.

It was like some critical part of my past had been severed, lost, disconnected, and I feel more than a little foolish for it. But that is nothing compared to the self-centered blubbering that is about to unfold.

On October 1st, my mother is moving out of the house she has rented for 29 years. So great is my distress over this disengagement, that I am compelled, under the guise of ‘helping,’ to travel to California to wallow in the memories that are stored at 1166 Hester Ave.

In reality, it is nothing but a happy occasion. My mother is finally fulfilling the dream of homeownership, postponed for decades as she raised and educated three children and supported a fair share of deadbeats along the way. Yet, I get overcome with emotion when I think about returning from Australia to find her life transplanted into new environs without having been a part of the transition, as if I might otherwise never ‘belong’ there. I do not like to imagine returning to San Jose and driving by my childhood home inhabited by strangers without having been able to walk through the empty rooms saying goodbye to ghosts.

My mother is delighted by the prospect of throwing out much of her old life and starting fresh in a new place. I can certainly appreciate that – I have done it more times than I can count, and perhaps that is part of why I am so distraught. That constancy, that romantic notion of ‘home’, a place that I could always go back to, has provided me with a degree of stability in my nomadic life. Now all that will be gone, and I am a little scared of how that will impact my perception of my place in the world.

Or maybe I am just feeling the strain of the incredible distance. Australia is very far away from the rest of the world, a notion that I neglected to give proper consideration before moving here.

Or maybe I am just getting old. And tired.

Or maybe, I just needed a good excuse to eat a proper burrito.