washwords

Too cheesy to say “where the heart is” ?

Probably. But it’s true.

I’ve been thinking a lot about home lately. Not just because Nablopomo told me to think about it - it’s their theme for June, but ABOUT home. About where it is, how you know it, how you hold onto it, how you move to be sheltered by it when it shifts.

It started with a trip home. Well, to the home where I grew up, the town I grew up. “my hometown…. this is myyy home town…” It was a trip to take my boyfriend “home.” So where you grow up? That must be home.

On that trip, I went literally home, back to the source, to THE home, the physical home where I grew up; the home, serendipitously enough, that one of my very bestest friends in the 3rd, 4th, 5th grades had just purchased… with her husband…. and baby.

It filled me with joy. Here was the home where she and I had played. She could teach her son that the evergreen tree was hollow inside if you poked in just the right way, that the basement cabinets made an excellent clubhouse, that the spot to the left of the staircase was perfect for spying on whoever was below.

V had been there when my dad passed the rule “no more dr. scholls.” Too many girls were getting the think wooden heels of those monstrosities stuck on our thin deck and being catapulted into the backyard! She was there for birthday parties, scavenger hunts, t ball games and trips to ground round for sundaes in baseball caps.

I couldn’t wait to see it.

But I also was afraid. This was the home where my father, and my memories of him, lived. And it was the home where he died, making the brightest and Read more »

Tim Russert Dies of Heart Attack

Really? Really, universe? Did this have to be?
Did it have to be Father’s Day weekend, Friday the 13th, out of nowhere, without warning.

How many truly great men do we have to lose? How can we have an election without him?
Adieu, Tim Russert, great journalist, great man, kind person, Washintonian at core, man of the people (I saw him on the Metro. A lot. He always said hello and smiled.)

My heart is sunken. Truly.

Old friends, Old friends, Sat on their park bench, Like bookends.
A newspaper blown through the grass Falls on the round toes On the high shoes, Of the old friends.

***

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was A time of innocence, a time of confidences Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph Preserve your memories; they’re all that’s left of you, they’re all that’s left me to.

-Simon and Garfunkel, 1968

A month or so ago, no, undoubtedly it was longer now, an unknown number showed up on my phone. As is my practice, I didn’t answer. I often don’t answer the phone even when I know the caller- it scares me, disrupts my rhythm and flow of my days, or, in the case, quiet, writing evening. I especially don’t answer when I don’t recognize the number.

A minute later an email came through. This time from a name I DID recognize. “Just looking up old friends. How are you doing? Call me!” said the message from indeed an old friend, an old friend I hadn’t heard from in years, an old friend I once thought I loved, desparately, painfully, though now I know that feeling was just Read more »