Terra Nova.

This song came up in my shuffle on the plane on the way home from Indiana yesterday, after a visit — the first in a year and a half — with my sister and her husband and her three boys (my nephews, who are no longer boys but all young men now), my brother and his partner of nearly 30 years, my oldest dear friend Martha, and my dad who is 87, and that a capella coda that Carly Simon sings has been in my head ever since, the best kind of earworm.

In high school, I listened to this album over and over and over and, though I didn’t and still do not know what the song is about — something about the Pilgrims and an ex-lover and a voyage somewhere you’ve never been to but that is home? — I was moved by it and I am still. I’m sure back then my deep feelings were at least partly due to James Taylor’s eyes looking back at me from the album cover.

I still love this record best of all the James Taylor albums, and this song is my favorite among many favorites.

Like others I’m sure, as a kid I loved that James Taylor and Carly Simon were married. Shortly after I moved to New York, I saw him and their two children on the Upper West Side, all of them looking willowy and beautiful. And then a year or two later, they were divorced. I’ve long imagined their final argument:

Carly (at the end of her rope): And please stop pronouncing “the” like “thee.”

James: Why?

Carly: Because it’s irritating.

James (crestfallen): But it’s my thing.

Carly:

James: