Happy Thursday! I know, I’m late this week–again. But this should be the last time as traveling is over. My suitcase is finally emptied and stashed in the closet where it hasn’t been for the past six weeks. I’ve been home during that time, just not long enough to actually put the suitcase away; it just got unpacked and repacked for the next jaunt. It feels good to be home though, both here in the Carolinas and back in Ohio where I’ve visited three times since I first took my suitcase out of storage.
The leaves are changing back home. This is a sugar maple leaf I picked up off a rain-wet sidewalk this past weekend. The sugar maples turn into burning bushes this time of year, their canopies flaming in brilliant red and orange. The sidewalks in my old neighborhood … As I write this, I’ve not lived in my ‘old neighborhood’ since I was in the 4th grade, but that’s the one I return to every time I return home. … anyway, the sidewalks in that neighborhood are literally still the ones I walked when I lived there. They’re still ‘catty-wampus’ and cantilevered from tree roots in the same places that either tripped me when I wasn’t paying attention or sent my two-wheeler flying (just a little bit) when I hit them just right at just the right speed.
I always stroll (slower than my usual pace) those several blocks when I return home. Even as the leaves turn colors the treetops are lush and heavy with them. It’s as if the trees know how stunning they are and reveling in their brilliance as much as I am. The reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, and maroons are more vivid in Ohio than I’ve seen in the Carolina mountains, as beautiful as those trees are.
I think of friends who also lived there–Diana, DeeDee (DeAnne now), Annette, Greg, Jan. Extended family, too. I notice how the houses have aged: the peeling curling paint, front porches and windowsills not quite so plumb, gingerbread trim missing spindles and bracing here and there. Even that decay has its own mysterious beauty. The first trip was for my brother-in-love’s memorial, Mark always saw the beauty in the simple and the mundane.
Less than a week after returning home to the Carolinas, the suitcase was packed for Ohio again. This time for an almost two-week stay as our son and daughter-in-law flew in from the West Coast. Family is always worth 9 hours on the road … even through Charlotte. (We still haven’t found that sweet spot where Charlotte traffic isn’t crazy.)
The weeks went quickly with lunches with my sisters, and with my daughter-in-law and Grand. With walks through a metro park while my D-I-L took my Grand’s senior pics among the flowers and waterfalls. With OSU football on the television and games of Monopoly at the kitchen table. With a late-night stop at the DQ just before they closed. No big event, just events together.
The night before we left, we finally had the chance to hear our son’s band. The six guys practice in his basement, where the guest room is and where we sleep. He’s the drummer so I’m always cautious heading down there in the dark, afraid of tripping and accidently playing a drum solo of crashing cymbals and snares. His band plays Pontoon Music, aka 70s rock. I asked my son why they chose that genre and era. His reply? That’s when they played the best music. I couldn’t argue with that.
That night as I ‘played’ keyboard on the table top, tapped my feet, and sang along, I was transported back to high school. It seemed appropriate since I returned to Ohio again this past weekend for my class reunion. Diana, DeAnne, Annette, Greg and close to a hundred other classmates were there. Considering our graduating class was only 256, and we’ve already lost more than 50, the turnout was great. There was real joy in that room as cliques somehow dissolved years ago, retirement or impending retirement eased stress, and those of us with gray hair (or no hair) and wrinkles embraced the changes. This may have been our last reunion, and while the thought of never seeing some of these friends again saddens me deeply, I’m so very grateful to have had this last chance to be with them. They are an integral part of home.
I’m back in the Carolinas now for the foreseeable future, back to playing in my dirt and writing. Grateful to have two places to call home.
However you define home–whether by the places you wander or plant your feet, or the people you surround yourself with either in the flesh or in memory–may it bring you peace and joy.
And may we all think of those in these times whose definition of home is non-existent, illusive, or taken from them.
I’ll definitely be back on Monday because I already have that post started! I hope you’ll be here too.
