Home

We finally got home last night. The cat was still at the kennel. Toys, magazines, bits of mail – oddments of a thousand kinds – lay strewn about from our hurried vacation-exit of two weeks ago. The air was stale and unbreathed. Home felt foreign, oddly exotic for such a familiar place.

It made me think of this poem by Philip Larkin: Home is so Sad.


This morning, the kids play, throwing new toys on top of the old while the cat chases underfoot, uncertain of which direction to fly – toward the chaos or away from it. I look through the cupboards, finding the glasses and plates in all the right places, and know if I closed my eyes I could find my way through the mess as though I had never left. This morning, home is my most comfortable pair of shorts – as loose and easy as sitting on the floor eating the last of the ice cream straight from the tub.

Today, home is a poem by William Carlos Williams: This Is Just To Say.