The Nest

I arrive in the night, carrying memories and gifts I didn't leave with in an unfamiliar city airport and make my way to my just-now-familiar car, the scent clean and cold and speaking of home.

I drive fifty-odd miles of tall buildings making way to shipyards and bridges and finally to my local rolling hills. I know they're green and beautiful even though they cover themselves in midnight... 

now there's the rise between San Rafael and Novato that I have driven every time I have come this way since April, breathing a sigh of happiness to see those healthy curves.

Petaluma is sleeping and I am easy on the gas pedal so as not to wake anything up: shops are shuttered, leaves are still and cold on the ground. Just one street down a front porch light glows its 'hello' and I do a little happy dance in my seat: my husband is inside of that house, my cats, my work, our life.....

There are the hugs and kisses, the exclamations (on my part) of crushing fatigue since it's three AM in my body's current time zone! Two furry ones weave in between our feet and Anthony carries in the heavy things while I wash the travel off of my bones.

Sleep comes easy, but that green tea latte I drank to stay awake for the drive home haunts my rest and gives me the type of dream where you have to count stock in a giant warehouse: the kind of sequence that leaves you waking time and time again, wishing for another scenario, only to repeat and repeat until morning!

In the early sun I see my home:

The back porch, the orange tree...

The things I've known since I was little...

my happily mismatched ensemble and the built in Craftsman nooks....

My keys....

counting the nesting dolls to see how many Jones dropped behind the linen hutch...

Home. The work can wait for a few days, the clothing can be folded later... I just want to drink it all in for now.

I wish you all the homeiness and happiness your hearts can hold as we all move towards a new year!