At home

My sandals are sitting next to the heater which is, if I remember to put them away, where they always are. My bag is hanging by its strap on the back of a dining room chair. There is Tejava in the fridge, as usual, and the Wii has recently been played. It is a beautiful Long Beach day, though a bit overcast, and traffic is making its typical roar on the busy street outside our apartment. Everything is exactly as it should be.

Is this what home feels like?

On Sunday night I ran across the parking lot to Chipotle, not afraid of getting lost in an unfamiliar crowd. Yesterday I did laundry for $1.50 in the little room behind our apartment, not with an iron and hand soap in a hotel sink. I drove my car today for the first time in two and a half weeks, and I don't think I need to mention that I wasn't wearing shoes when I did it. No hobo gloves neither. This is home.

For the past eight months, I haven't spent a night away from my hubby. We've put four thousand miles of road trip on his car together and listened to "Wagon Wheel" in eleven states. In the freezing winds of Chicago, he gave me his sweatshirt because my ears were aching. On our honeymoon in Hawaii, we sat on the bed and read comic books for hours instead of walking on the beach at sunset. Today, in Long Beach, I made him a bowl of ice cream for breakfast (with frozen gummi bears).

Ain't I a lucky snail, taking my home with me wherever I go?