Long Roads and Lullabies

Here I am again, home again, home again.  My first home.  Not the one that envelops me now in the "big city" with my husband and kids.  The one nestled in the "big woods".  The one that was my first.  Where I spent almost 18 years of my life waiting to have the life I have now, I suppose.

One hour and two minutes from the other one.  45.2 miles door to door, or carport to garage.  

I've never lived any other place that is so dark at night.  I hear dogs bark in the distance and I realize that soon, they'll be unpinned and unleashed and on the run, as their orange vested humans wait to end whatever they hope is flushed from these woods.  

I hear whippoorwills and an occasional car go by, only interrupted by the air conditioner when it kicks on.  An unfortunate necessity.

Before we had A/C, we used an attic fan.  Cool and refreshing relief would ride on its currents, its motor soothing like a mother's heartbeat.  I would give anything if I could hear the sound it made again, feel the wind under those gold curtains that hung on the windows over my bed.  I always dreaded the first cold snap, knowing my daddy would issue a stern warning to not turn it on and I'd have nothing to lull me to sleep.

There are so many memories in this house.  In these woods.  Now I lay here in the very spot my Daddy died 13 years and 4 days ago and I thank God again that he left his last breath here.  Because he loved it so.  

But I do not.

It's too far away, too remote, too inconvenient.  And that's too bad, because it's so very beautiful.  

And then I wonder how many more times I'll be here and if I'll miss it at all when my Mama gets to be with my Daddy again.  I know I'll miss her.  The sad truth is, I've been missing her for quite a while already.  

Every time I'm here though, a little piece of me is a teenager again.  It almost feels the same as it did then.  Except I'm not waiting for the long corded telephone to ring and I'm not giving the Bee Gee's "How Deep Is Your Love" 45 another spin on my cheap record player with a penny taped to its arm.

Right now I'm just here soaking up the quiet.  Listening for a whippoorwill, waiting for a car to pass by and praying she won't get up again to ask me when I can take her home.

You're already home, Mama.  And tonight, so am I.  So am I...