Thursday, November 08, 2012

Home again, home again, Jiggety-Jog

Divorce, separation, even when wanted, is funny that way, I suppose. Unhoused, home-less, de-homed? To have yet be without.

It's the little things. Well, first it is the big things.  All of routine, the town you return to at the end of the day, animals to care for and the suddenly not. Whether or not you own a stand-mixer, how to find the bathroom light switch in the dark.  But you buy night-lights, the LED kind to save on your new electric bill or to keep the suddenly-rent from going up.  You plug the GPS in again to go grocery-shopping, or just to get home from work on Wednesday, and take long walks to clear your head, and to find out where all these new roads go.

I have a picture in a rattly wood frame, Kelly-Green paint flaked along the hair-line cracks, a picture made in the 60's and probably found garage-saling with my mom before I was in nursery school.  A little girl kneels before her quilted bed, tiny paper hands clasped in nighttime prayer.  She has settled me in for sleep for longer than I can even remember and is the first decoration I hang whenever I move. I would rather not sleep until she is over my pillow.  



It's the little things. Beginning to recognize local faces, knowing where to get a friendly cup of coffee and an iced cutout cookie on my walk,finding the bathroom light switch in a blackout without a compass or torch, reaching into the right cabinet on the first try, returning from a particularly long day at work, all by my own navigation, and sighing into relaxation at arriving home.