Sunday, July 27, 2014

Home again, home again...

We are again home--without a fat pig, and emphatically without the 'jiggety-jig'. In fact, our latest 6-7 hour drive left us stiff and sore and ready for a good night's sleep. 

I have spent this spring and summer marking off chunks of calendar space and prefacing almost every statement with “After we get back from…” I have ALMOST run out of these blacked-out calendar spaces, and was starting to whip out my ever-present ‘To-Do” list for home when JC reminded me that we have two trips in the offing for the fall. I hadn’t thought about the fall. That had seemed too far away. But it is now knocking on our door…one month till Labor Day. Damn.

But, in this all-too-brief respite, lasting from now till then (with only a couple weekend trips in between!!!) I am enjoying a few generally unrecognized indulgences: my shower with the right brand of soap and shampoo; my bed with the perfect combination of sheet and blanket for the temperature on our thermostat; my kitchen, and the pantry that has all the weird ingredients for whatever recipe I choose, and the cabinets that hold the appropriate pots and pans; the drawers and closet that yield appropriate clothing for unpredictable weather… I am rejoicing in not having to read a manual to decipher the vagaries of television and internet, in walking out my gate and getting in the car without crossing expanses of parking lots and shrubbery, in being able to run a load of laundry as needed.  The little comforts of home.

Home is the place to stop and recharge, to be quiet, to re-establish a baseline, to evaluate and reset. Home is necessary. Travel is broadening--of this, there is no doubt--but coming home is not the least of its concomitant pleasures.

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