going home again

I’m in yet anoth­er air­port.  Head­ed home.

Where IS home?

I’ll explain.

Two weeks ago I left Lon­don — home — to begin my Amer­i­can Sum­mer 2015 road trip, only the road trip was in the air.  Lon­don, Detroit, Indi­anapo­lis, Detroit, Cedar Rapids, Detroit, JFK.  All places that take me home, real­ly (except for Detroit, which I’m sor­ry to say must be home to some­body but to me it’s an air­port, pure and simple).

I’ll tell you all this in lov­ing detail when I’m safe­ly in Lon­don, but suf­fice to say that Indi­ana was superb…

I spent time with so many peo­ple I love.

And then I went to Iowa, a place tru­ly beloved to me, filled with bril­liant people.

Of course Red Gate Farm is “home.”

And so are oth­er oth­er impor­tant bits of Connecticut.

There were dear friends.

New York City.  Need I say more? Old and new merge in my memory.

Beloved friends.

I have cooked a lun­cheon and five din­ner par­ties, attend­ed sev­er­al more, held a baby, con­tem­plat­ed an hour-old paint­ing, kissed a cousin, poked a dead bat, toured a new barn, jumped through a sprin­kler, wept over a child­hood golf course, smelled the sea, and I have wit­nessed the wav­ing corn­fields, Amer­i­can flags and lov­ing “hel­lo, good­bye” hands of all the peo­ple and places I’ve left behind.

I count­ed it up: I have sat at a table, on a porch, in a stu­dio, on a tram­po­line, a swing or a park bench, with 55 — fifty-five! — peo­ple I hold near and dear, in the last four­teen days.

It’s time to go… “home.”  Next post, Lon­don.  And if I did­n’t see you on this trip, I will on the next.

It’s a won­der­ful life.