Monday
Oct122009
Upon Returning Home
Monday, October 12, 2009 at 2:35PM 
my dining room, autumn 2006
What to do after arriving home at 2:30 in the morning, after 15 hours of traveling through four states, a mountainside traffic jam, low-visibility rainstorms, no-visibility fog, and one wicked stomachache that required a layover at a creepy trucker rest stop.
- Unload only what you need for the night, which really, isn't much. Leave everything else in the car until two days later when you finally decide to get dressed in a way that is fit for public consumption and your jeans and sweaters are still in the suitcase. Then you can bring in the luggage and let it sit on your bedroom floor for another day or two.
- Greet the soft, grey kitties with cooing words and plenty of petting. Let them need you all day and all night, and all through the next few days. Let them sleep on your stomach, knead invisible loaves of bread on your thighs, and breathe on your face with their dainty kibble breath.
- Lounge around your house with your spouse for one whole day. Deem yoga pants and tee-shirts acceptable attire. Order food from the pizza place. Watch scraps of movies on TV. Avoid the laptop until the husband starts to watch football, then decide you'd rather check email.
- Feel at home and grounded in your space when you smell your favorite hand soap at the kitchen sink. This is a small thing, but it's good.
- Go to the grocery store when the food supplies are down to cereal and canned soup. This will take about a day and a half.
- Sit in the quiet of the house on the husband's first day back to work, wondering where all of your creative energy is hiding. You swear you saw it around here yesterday, just waiting to be tapped.
- Think about making turkey chili and cornbread for dinner. And chocolate chip cookies. Scheme other baking plans: gooey butter cookies, deep and dark gingerbread cake, maybe a loaf of bread.
- Be glad for the summer and early fall of travel: four trips in four months.
- Sink into the comforts of autumn at home.
Reader Comments (6)
Welcome home :-)
Can't remember when or how I discovered your blog (probably through "Notes to Self"), but yours is one of only two that I've bookmarked ("Notes to Self" being the other). I keep coming back for more from you, and I've not been disappointed. There's wisdom, balance, soul, and reality in what you write, and it just has a way of making me feel good.
MH