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I had all sorts of thoughts to write down yesterday, my first full day home, but I didn’t actually touch a computer the whole day. Being home feels like a different world, a different me. It never fails to surprise me how quickly I “adjust” to the change from school to home or home to school. But each time I’ve spent a day or two at one place the other becomes hazy and far away. Here, at home, my world revolves around laundry to fold, floors to sweep, papers to file, cats to cuddle. The sights, tastes and sounds are different, but so familiar that I almost wonder if I ever left.

Yesterday I found myself soothed by hanging out cool, damp laundry in the jungle of weeds that is our backyard. I was surprised to find a bamboo stalk, several times as tall as I am, growing proudly from a crack in our driveway. Two days ago we pulled out a weed nearly as tall. I am always dismayed by the state of chaos and disrepair that I find at home, but somehow it is also comforting. It really feels like, well, home. Yes the paint is chipping off the kitchen cabinets; yes the yard is overgrown; yes the dining room table is buried under piles of newspaper. But there are fresh-smelling clothes drying on the line. There is lush lavender swarmed by butterflies and bees in the front yard. There is cool, sweet lemonade in the fridge. The white tiles in the bathroom shine in the afternoon sunlight after I have scrubbed them. And I can curl up in bed and read my favorite children’s books with my cat tucked contentedly into the crook of my arm.

Having just settled in, I return this evening to Stanford, though I suspect I will hardly spend enough time there to make the mental leap. For information’s sake, I am leaving for Greece on Thursday and returning Sunday the 26th.

Right now, however, I need to bring a load of laundry off the line…

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