Pilgrim, How You Journey.... the road that leads to "home"

Well, how different is this Memorial Day from recent ones... Annually since I was a little girl we have been pilgrims through the near-by cemetery where my family lies... and this year we visit one more heart-touching one, the small, quiet place where my father's grave must be. A new stone with carvings of a barn and his beloved telephone insulator wires sits at the head, and beautiful red and white flowers await our loving glances. I can see the churchyard if I look just right through the rain.... almost a mile away, but very close to his land. I know he wanted that. But this post isn't about sadness exactly. It isn't about loss... or about despair over losing someone of such strength and quiet steadiness... That post would be far too sad to read, to write, to even ponder on such a tentatively sunny morning as we are having..

This post is about home. Those of you who have come to know me have followed me from one house to this one.... And what a picture this is... right now the locusts are endeavoring to provide earthbound clouds of fragrance and beauty all around my new home. The part of my mother's home that shows in this picture is MINE... That whole room with the two front windows is mine... I have a delicious room that awaits transformation this summer. You see, I know I can talk my mother into anything I really need to do for this room to seem more mine... and I now have the time and the rest needed to make those decisions... When I was in school, racing home at 4 p.m. and having been up since 4 a.m. until nearly 1 every morning again... it isn't easy to make any decisions based on four hours of sleep and some catnaps.... But summer vacation is always a great time for rest and rejuvenation... Those three reasons to be a teacher (June, July, and August) are not truly good reasons because of the fact we don't have lessons to plan and kids to see... I love lessons and kids.... but the months off are good for our heads, and I so wish every profession offered that delicious luxury to its loyal devoted worker bees...

Home is a state of the heart. I know it, and we all know it... I can't say I don't miss my home, my cat, my stuff... my china and dark navy wallpaper... my Tiffany lamps and my beautiful aura that made me feel loved, autonomous, safe, and snugly... That would be lying to you lovely readers... and to myself. I miss it terribly. I miss the idea that I can pick up a magazine and get a great idea and move things around and spiff in the kitchen... you know.... putter.... But that "missing" has to be put somewhere and I have to get a grip on this life... however long I am here with Mother is actually going to be a season my life... this is home....

Remember when you were little and you traveled with your parents to far away motels... If you stayed more than one night, didn't you sometimes feel that little motel room was home? If I could do it then in Big Springs, in Denver, in Wichita.... I can surely do it in the homestead where I grew up.... The Serenity Prayer never held more power than it does for me in this situation... Accept the things I cannot change.... (living here, some of the "pinkness" and the frills, the floor plan.... the lack of solitude that I somehow crave and she doesn't)... the power to change the things I can (comfortable bed, bringing over books, wall hangings, lamps, comforts of home.... establishing self care rituals and sharing gestures that make this room my haven of hospitality to my friends and family rather than an initial dumping ground for coats and boots when people stop by here....)... and the wisdom to know the difference... (Oh, girl, get wisdom.... and there maybe (respectfully submitted) should be even one more line to that prayer: the good sense to shut up about it!....???????????? Begging the pardon of St. Francis.... but then I didn't ever hear he lived with his mother, did you?????

Again, have a good Memorial Day with your family and friends...