Home

Really, what is home? Four walls, a collection of memories,

a soft place to land. At times, its edges sharply contrast

its soft perches.

A canvas, twinged with, and housing shadows of the past, creating

the future.

A place of

comfort, yes,

and pain.

Of all life's intricacies.

Beyond the structure of walls, floors

furniture on which to rest,

home parlays into our being.

A contradiction--a place to flee,

a place to return.

To arrive.

To be.

To start the day and

to set down the day,

your things,

your thoughts.

A new life.

A trance of expectations, met and forgotten.

A folding of laundry,

of ideals,

of traditions.

Mittens, snow covered

drying by the radiator.

Beach bags filled with half-full SPF 50 and

grains of sand.

Stories of fallibility and success sunken into

rafters and worn wood floors. Varied, shifting, dark, light and warm.

Wherever I am. Yes. Now is home. Does each past moment inhabit

a support beam, a concrete foundation,

a beloved painting?

Do new moments wait in the dust-bunny filled corners?

A long embrace,

a birthday celebrated,

a phone call answered.

Lives created,

hurts tumbled with their apologies,

soaring gratitude.

Bandaids and meals shared.

Reverberations of doors slammed,

equilibriums restored.

Open wine bottles and intimacies

recorded by the flickering warmth of the

candle light.

At times, confining, others comforting.

Home.

The embrace of familiar scents,

the embrace of lithe bodies once pudgy.

An echo chamber of words, hopes, fears, questions, dreams, detours.

Home.

Parent Patter

As a child, I remember drifting to sleep with the sounds of my parents sifting through the muted lights of the house. Like a lullaby, their voices, sounds and conversations lulled me to sleep. I usually wondered what they discussed, questioning whether it was different than the conversations held when I was awake. But those questions lingered only for moments as I fell asleep rapidly, calm because of their proximity and constant rhythm.

The evening sounds of parents, especially the very special sounds that accompany dinner parties and company, lure like moths to a flame. I still remember drifting to sleep to the hypnotic sounds of clinking glasses, bursts of laughter and hushed whispers. It all seemed so lyrical, glamorous and adult.

Now, as my children sleep (through most anything--a major blessing), I wonder what prattle and pixilation of hubby's and my evenings rise up through the rafters into their rooms and shape their dreams. Do they hear the music of our amblings? Do our sound patterns provide a cellular-level grasp of our nearness, and their safety? Will they remember hubby and I kissing them each night, whispering our love like a skipping record into their ears and souls?

I hope so.

And in a natural turn of events, I now find that the symphonic nighttime sounds of my children crafting a new lullaby. A little cough, a tousled sheet, the padding of pudgy feet to the bathroom. A long, contented sigh. All wrapping me in a nestled, idyllic hug. Fleeting yet divine. I know that the beautiful harmony might give way to dissonance at any moment (vomit, fevers, nightmares and wet beds). So I embrace the melodic while it resides right here, right now.