Thomas Wolfe Was Right

You can't go home again.

A new sign replaces an old one, torn down in my childhood. A walking trail from an interstate to the heart of downtown replaces the automobile underpass, the train station once above it torn down in my young adulthood.

Just as my mother's childhood home has recently been razed and my grandfather's 1920s Tudor too, both for grandiose houses, one a Disneyfied McMansion.

Home, but not.

Quandary; or, I've Got the Rainy Day Blues

Which is worse? An ugly ceiling fan or an ugly ceiling?

Welcoming Committee

My own noiseless, patient spider.

Home?

Why is it that after spending most of my life living elsewhere I always immediately answer the question "Where are you from?" with "Birmingham"?

I haven't lived in Birmingham since 1988.

But.

I still say Birmingham.

It used to be that I bridled when admitting my home -- because of its reputation, well earned, as an equality backwater -- but it's still home.

So after a funeral in Birmingham yesterday afternoon, when someone asked, "Are you going home now?" I answered yes, thinking But I am already home.

The Comforts of Home

These are highly satisfactory cats.

Tiny Doodlebug and Bacee (Big Ass Cat) sleep on my work sweater.

There's No Place Like Home

unless it's the lake run-off channel where American toads sing and string eggs

or the dam where a fisherman said Shore is purty, ain't it?

or the trestle bridge where I saw a tiny bug (a midge?) struggle in a web, pulled it out, fingered off the sticky web, placed the bug on the bridge, and watched it fly away.

Time to Open the Windows

so the cats can sit in the sun
sniff the air
and welcome me home

Bridges

1.
The earliest image of me that I recognize as me (as opposed to the actual earliest image) is a tile painted my mother painted. Here I am, standing on the bridge we crossed every day, going home or leaving it.

I remember playing Poohsticks, posing for a Christmas card, helping children onto the bridge to talk to Santa, my brother riding his motorcycle over the bridge (and landing in jail because he was too young for a license), the metal Robin Hood hanging from the lit lamp, glowing soft yellow-orange.

This bridge led me home.

2.
Lake Cheston has a series of four bridges along the water's edge. My favorite used to feel more private, before the dog park, now clearly visible on the way to, on, and from the bridge. It's still my favorite lake bridge anyway, largely because of the tree that blushes and then flushes every fall, throwing deep shade and dropping flaming leaves on weathered wood.

This bridge makes me feel at home.

Accidental Impressionism

When taking photographs, I worry that I'm not experiencing a moment because I'm so focused on snapping it. Then later, when I get home and look at the pictures, a great image sometimes surfaces, both on the screen and I know it's what I saw.

That's what happened with this photograph.

I took about fifteen snaps of the stream and the snow and the reflections, each from a slightly different spot. When I snapped this one, the water shimmered like marbleized paper. I'm pleased that's what the camera saw, too.

As a girl, I was fascinated by the creek at home. As an adult, I am still fascinated. I could take photographs of streams like this one all day long. I'd be happy, both in the taking and the looking later.

At Home Elsewhere

It's strange, isn't it, to feel at home in someone else's house?

I've been lucky of late to have a second home in which good friends live. No matter when I arrive, they make me feel missed and welcome. Best of all, they don't vary their routine, truly making me feel like one of the family, as much a family member as my niece, Lady.











Thanks for a home away from home and for those who live there.