No Place Like Home

Sometimes I don’t  know where or what home is. Is it 1809 N. Madison Junction City KS?

Is it 1010 Burke Drive? Or does it lie in the arms of my first love; bare and unfurnished because the welcome mat is indented with the remains of my heart stomped out by his rejection? And what does home smell like? Is it the pine-sol/bleach mix Aunt Diane used to mop her kitchen floor at least four times a week? Or the aroma of fried catfish nuggets and grits Dad made every Saturday morning while Adventures in Odyssey crackled over the airwaves of Angel 95?

Maybe it smells like Mema: a cloud of white diamonds and homemade cookies. Those definitely tasted like home. But sometimes home tastes like prune juice,because it was the home remedy for childhood constipation. Or maybe home tastes like tears and sweat and olive oil dripping from the hands of preachers. Hands pressed into foreheads and temples with faith that was supposed to make depression disappear. And then home sounds like Mama and Daddy’s prayers when the sun has either not yet risen or laid to rest a long time ago.

Home sounds like the slinging of belt loops for sneaking and kissing your boyfriend at seventeen years old. Home sounds like youth choir practice, right at the moment the altos, sopranos, and tenors blend in perfect harmony and the pastor’s sons bring it all together with keyboard strokes and drumsticks. Home sounds like preacher’s call to the altar for repentance and the clink of coins in offering bags. Home is the creak of rusted swing set chains and little girls taunting your tiny body and over sized chest.

Home is Daddy staying up way past his bedtime to help with your 4-H project so you’ll secure that long-coveted purple ribbon. Home is late night mother-daughter talks at Denny’s over coffee and chicken fingers covered with ranch dressing. Home is Sunday-School bus ministry, Sunday worship service, Sunday evening service, Tuesday night youth service, Thursday night Bible study, choir practice, youth prayer, and clean-up on between nights. Home is weekend outreach, out of town conferences, church camp and spending kindergarten through high-school in Apostolic Academy yet never feeling smart enough.

Home is curling up in a corner in your bedroom with “ Keep on Trusting God” by Deitrick Haddon on repeat while the tears flow uncontrollably and you beg for a sign, an answer, something anything that makes home feel like a place where you are wanted, where you matter..., where you belong. Home is hiding a bottle of Tylenol, Aleve, and Motrin just in case one or the other is not enough to make the inward pain stop. Permanently.  

Home is getting therapy on the pastor’s couch while he tells you that you are valuable only to preach in the pulpit the next night that anyone who contemplates suicide is weak-minded and incredibly selfish. Home is choosing your outfit for Sunday service and while using a safety-pin to keep up your neckline your hand trembles, tears fall, and you watch as it tumbles down the bathroom sink drain.

Home is studying the Proverbs 31 woman and your pastor’s wife in a desperate attempt to make yourself desire marriage and children and a lack of opinion. Home is getting a job and going to college and realizing that maybe all of your questions are not that scary. Home is trying to have a conversation about the role of women in the church and being told you are going against the Bible and this is why women should not be in college.

Home is never speaking about your attraction to the same sex in addition to rare mention of your attraction to the opposite because you watch your friends get ostracized and shunned by their own families because of who they love. Home is trying to find worthiness on annual work days scrubbing the burgundy fuzz of church pews and polishing the tithe box. Home is volunteering to baby-sit, cook, clean, and help the elderly with grocery shopping, writing for the church newsletter, playing the piano, running the aisles, conducting bible-studies, speaking in youth service, and going on three day fasts without telling anyone about it.

Home is realizing that holding in all of your desires, and pretending you are ok with a future where you barely exist may kill the deepest part of you.

Home is where the heart is.

Home I have found does not sit in a person, or a place or even a lone state of being. Home isn’t anywhere. Home is everywhere. Home is in the stacks upon stacks of books that cover all the corners of your room because they have made better friends than people ever did. Home is realizing that all of your quirky behaviors actually shine and overshadow the cutting words that once made you feel exposed and weak. Home is holding friends in your arms and letting them weep into your shoulder because you know that spot is the hallway to rest.

Home is calling your sister when you feel yourself slipping and knowing she will steady your feet because she has been there with you every step of the way.

Home is learning that it is not something you find or create alone. Home is a collaboration, a symphony of high notes and baritones. Home is a cluster. Bedrooms of memories, kitchens if simmering emotions, and backyards of timely experiences. Home is a constant evolution of transformation.

Just like us. The center of it.

A Haiku Sonnet

Graveyard

Broken headstones near
Disintegrating body
 parts: Eyes, tongues, earlobes.

Index fingertip,
A half crumbled shoulder blade
My former lovers,

Appendages lay
Scattered about, forgotten.
I still smell each one,

Taste the flavor of
Disappointment resting on-
 My inner elbow.

Sounds of pulsating heartbeats
Shake earth. Create catacombs

Atmospheric Phenomena

I didn't ask for much.


I just wanted to be held,


Close


Hearts beating in sync, fingers interlocked, ear pressed to shoulder


Just for a little while.


 Words spoken without a disclaimer or conditional clause its what they call


Transparency.


When we were together I felt just comfortable enough to strip,

layer upon layer away until I was almost bare.


Vulnerable and naked even while wearing my favorite sweatpants and a t-shirt that smelled just like you.


Your palpitating energy, pulsating into mine,

 A blinding, explosive, eternal flame which refused to be snuffed out.


We were stars.


Colliding,


Falling through galaxies. Transcending time and space.


The descent was unstoppable.


Spinning, and whirling out of control


All balance lost


We crashed.


 The smooth curves of my surface transformed into jagged edges.


Daggers of self-preservation


And I shattered the planet that one day might have been called


Us.

Swimming Lessons

                                                    
                                                         
                                                                SWIMMING LESSONS


                                               
                                                         
                                                                   I found myself


     Floating in the abyss, wafting in the ripples of your love, drifting on the taste of your tongue     

    And I began to wonder

                                      What if; I drown?



    Comforted in the cocoon in the possibility I realized there is no safety net

     And trust is my only life jacket.



   I wrapped myself in a cloak of preservation, for which I had not yet been fitted.

      
And instead of saving me,
                                          It chaffed into my skin and punctured my heart.
                                   


    Guided by the melody of vocal instruction, I learned to bend and twist accordingly

                   Breast-stroke, back-stroke, butterfly.



               All the while I held my breath in anticipation

                        Of knowing that you wanted to keep me from dying

                             As much as I wanted to risk my life for you.



My limbs lengthened, grew heavy and expelled strength as if to honor my resilience.

  
             Cool water and gentle winds transformed into ocean waves, cyclones, and created

                        An emotional hurricane.



 I panicked as the sharpness in my chest and throbbing in my head revealed the undeniable truth.

                            I.  Was. Sinking.

                                                             

                                  Into you.

                                                       Through you.

                                                                           Because of  You.

                            

                            The one who taught me to snorkel through the barrier reef of courage.

                                                        You,

                         Who helped me surf the rushing, roaring, raging currents of emotion.

                                                        You,

                                  The one who should have been.

                                                          You,

                                        The one I hoped would be


                                                   My Lifeguard.

Senescence

Do you see him?

Hardly anyone does. In this mass of youthful bodies rushing this way and that,

The man hobbling on the sidewalk struggling to balance his bags in his comfortable looking (but judging from the stance of his walk) not so comfortable orthopedic shoes.

He attempts to catch the nearly full bus before he is either trampled or the door unfolds and squeaks shut in his face. 

His clothes though not tattered or soiled no longer fit his frame properly. They billow around his hunched shoulders and slightly bent knees adding to his cloak of invisibility

His dark eyes seem to shrink deep into his face behind a constant watery mist.

They are trained eyes, experienced eyes, pushed past their freshness state.

Those eyes have read countless books, screened over five-thousand movies and sized up too many football games.

The hands. His hands, now gnarled trembling and fragile once carried boxes half of his body weight but now bear the difficulty of one five pound plastic handled Wal-mart bag.

They were once his livelihood, used for manual labor, a firm handshake, to caress the hand of his lover. Now they grip tightly to the curved knob of his walking stick. 

For him and him alone it seems, they are still of use.

His arms were once sinewy, not too muscular. Not too scrawny either. They were perfect.

For giving toss-in-the-air turns to each of this three children, for changing the light-bulbs in the far reaching ceiling fans of his family’s home, for hoisting himself into a tree and judging its strength for a tree-house.

Now the arms hang feebly at his sides and he protects them by leaning mostly on his walking stick.

Can you see him?

He makes it onto the bus. The driver lets down the step for him but he doesn’t lift his head. He pays his fare and trots down the aisle in search of a seat. No one in the front open-ended seating area designated for the elderly or those with disabilities scoots an inch.

The driver takes off with a lurch and the man loses his footing. 

His walking stick slips away at an odd angle from his stance. 

Someone slides over, about three centimeters to the right and he falls rather than sits between two teenagers,

Their faces glued to tiny screens on boxes in their strong hands.

They don’t look up.