Not a Simon and Garfunkel Song

HOME

Not a Simon and Garfunkel song, it leaps into my psyche

As a burgeoning void; of a big WHERE?

Where is this elusive thing? I had one once. A nice, comfy, two-story home with

An OAK and the two tallest trees on the block on a street that used to be a creek in a little valley,

My home was on the bank in a meadow that became lost

as the houses sprouted up like mushrooms;

And the stream was forced into a tube below in a subterranean dream world of the dark;

Now, I sometimes feel like a weary, Galactic Traveler and I spy the brilliant blue jewel

in the velvet firmament

and I cringe, “Is that where I am from?”

Of course, I have lived in several boxes of various sizes in various locales and spots

on that Blue Jewel;

some large, with many side compartments and most were modest,

one even rolled about on wheels for a time when

I was a “Free Spirit” drifting on the winds of change, opportunity and desire;

That Home was “wherever I happened to Be.”

Now, I live out of boxes it seems, more and more of them pile up all the time;

So many of them that I even have to store them in larger boxes for rent.

So, what is this thing – “Home?”

Are we ever truly there, “at home?”

Where is the heart-MY heart if it is where home is?

Where am I?

A friend just asked me,

“Where do you want to live?”

I peer out of my suitcase (one of many where it seems I have been for far too long) and

I gawk at her in disbelief.

“How could she possibly ask me that? Am I not comfortable where I am?”

I long for the “comforts of Home.”

I don’t even know what that is anymore, everything is so fast and modular;

We zip around hopping from career to career, exploiting the pursuit of money

Fame, popularity, success, gathering toys and prizes of accomplishment

Only to store them in boxes inside of boxes, attics, basements, and sheds;

Are these the “comforts of home?”

Is it where we can hang our hat? Where we wash our dishes after a hardy, tasteful meal?

I put my feet in front of a blaze in a fireplace when it is cold, and this makes me feel cozy.

Ah, I think to myself, this feels like home…

But is it?

Will home ever be like it ever was?

The trouble with home is it seems there is always someone

Whose goal it seems is to take it away;

Increase the rent, your Mortgage is overdue

Your taxes have to be paid,

“What do you mean, I have to keep the lawn manicured?” I shout

as the Code Enforcement Officer for the town snarls

before driving away having left the warning ticket.

I think back to what my friend asked.

I long for that sense of place. Yes, that is what it is, I am sure of this.

We ALL want this.

I feel the moistness in my eyes thinking of it,

Something comfortable, something owned, something with a cheery presence

and a bright kitchen and greenery and soothing nature all around…

You can feel it; the heart quickens as you imagine it.

I have lost it far too much in one existence.

The box I am in contains me even though I “Think outside the Box,”

I always have…

Is that why a “home” eludes me like I am a comet streaming past the gleaming jewel?

Yes, I am from that place. I want desperately to return there.

We all do. Yet we all are comets burning out

Before we get to the sun.

That Gravity that finally claims us.

Our true home perhaps?

Perhaps heaven?

Come on in, make yourself at home.