Samain                                     Moon of the Winter Solstice

Much as I enjoyed the travel, the close time with Kate, the ocean, new cultures and places, I find this computer and my own keyboard, my reference shelf and my library, mementos from past trips, family, collected art like slipping into a pair of comfortable bedroom slippers.  At its best travel allows for renewal, challenge, broadening, but an unexpected and forgotten pleasure, perhaps never noticed before, is this lifting up of home.

Home as reality and as metaphor carries a special valence for all of us, one way or the other.  I moved so often for the first 40+ years of my life I never had the time, the digging into a place where I could really feel home.  Here in Andover, although the burb itself is nada as place, the home Kate and I have created nourishes both of us.  We have space for our mutual creative work, space for mutual work outside and in, leisure space and fitness space.

Over the years, as is the case with most family homes, our sons have developed memories here, now grandchildren and in-laws, too.  Animals, both present and past, inhabit the hallways and the woods.  Storms past, challenges met and overcome, Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas, birthdays, honey harvests.  All here.

Home.  This trip made me appreciate it more than I ever have.