Home Sweet Home, Home Sweet Office.
Oct. 25th, 2005 08:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aamusedinatxYou have no idea how good it feels to be home. As soon as I hit the ground on Sunday night, I could feel the cool energy of this place fill me. As I stood waiting to collect my bag, I could smell cool, damp, salt air wafting in through the sliding doors of baggage claim. I stood on the curb waiting for the Mad Scientist to circle once more and breathed deep, ignoring the noise of people, cars and buses. Home!! I can remember a time, not so many years ago, when I dreaded the word home and would use business as an excuse to leave town any chance I got...no more.
I got out of Florida well ahead of the hurricane, which hit well south of where I was. I was exhausted and headachey from all that heat and humidity. I stayed awake only long enough to say hello and good night to Dr Lust and to the Enigma and then I tumbled into bed. At 5am I rose, wrote an email to the boss which said "There's no fucking way...I'm wasted" and went back to bed. I woke briefly at 9am when Enigma called me, unaware I wasn't at work. It was 2pm before I climbed out of bed for good yesterday.
Home. Home to me is a strange concept. I've had so many homes in so many places through the years. I have no concept of staying put, of putting down roots, of having an anchor of love and devotion to a geographical place. At least not until this place. Not just Berkeley, but really to the entire Bay Area. When I arrived here in 1991, it was because I wanted to be here. It was the first time I had moved because I wanted to be in a certain place. On Christmas that year, I was invited to hike in Pt. Reyes park by a new friend I'd only met in November. I accepted, not wanting to be lonely and alone on the holiday. About 3 in the afternoon, we stopped in a large meadow and sat to eat our lunch. I sat gazing through the clear day out to the pacific ocean. I was perhaps a thousand feet above sea level.
There was a cool breeze but the sunshine was warm. The air smelled heavy of redwoods, eucalyptus and winter grass. I sat eating an orange and sharing some hummus and chips. I drank water and was suddenly filled with such a sense of PLACE. I had never before felt that way and I knew then, the only way you would get me out of here permanently is in a pine board box.
Now home is more to me than just a geographical place. It is my cottage, my friends, my loves, my animals. I missed them all and even that sense of missing someone, something is relatively new to me. I've not yet reconciled myself to its bittersweet pang, but I have learned to recognize it.
Yesterday when I gave myself over to some much needed sleep it was with such a sense of utter comfort and contentment. It was as if I was sleeping with arms around the entire embodiment of home, not just my pillow and a lazy, happy assortment of animals. I was home and with home I could rest, peacefully and fully.
This morning It felt odd to re enter my normal routine. The alarm went off. The circus of animals all asking for their good morning hello. The dog going in and out as she can't decide what she want worse the bathroom, or breakfast, or to play with her squeaky dinosaur.
I spent part of the morning trying to remember where I'd put my clean jeans before I left, finding a sweater as the mornings have turned chill, digging out my rain coat. repacking business cards collected at the show so I can log them and start my sales follow ups. Finding where I hid the power cord to the work laptop.
It's darker in the mornings now, but that will end next week with the time change. This morning everything was damp from the heavy fog. I stood carrying my tote bag and computer bag, and was glad for my new pumpkin colored winter coat.
And now...with my first cup of coffee sitting beside the computer and the relative quiet of a workplace not yet in full swing.
I reflect on how wonderful it feels to have a home in so many senses of the word.
I am blessed.
I got out of Florida well ahead of the hurricane, which hit well south of where I was. I was exhausted and headachey from all that heat and humidity. I stayed awake only long enough to say hello and good night to Dr Lust and to the Enigma and then I tumbled into bed. At 5am I rose, wrote an email to the boss which said "There's no fucking way...I'm wasted" and went back to bed. I woke briefly at 9am when Enigma called me, unaware I wasn't at work. It was 2pm before I climbed out of bed for good yesterday.
Home. Home to me is a strange concept. I've had so many homes in so many places through the years. I have no concept of staying put, of putting down roots, of having an anchor of love and devotion to a geographical place. At least not until this place. Not just Berkeley, but really to the entire Bay Area. When I arrived here in 1991, it was because I wanted to be here. It was the first time I had moved because I wanted to be in a certain place. On Christmas that year, I was invited to hike in Pt. Reyes park by a new friend I'd only met in November. I accepted, not wanting to be lonely and alone on the holiday. About 3 in the afternoon, we stopped in a large meadow and sat to eat our lunch. I sat gazing through the clear day out to the pacific ocean. I was perhaps a thousand feet above sea level.
There was a cool breeze but the sunshine was warm. The air smelled heavy of redwoods, eucalyptus and winter grass. I sat eating an orange and sharing some hummus and chips. I drank water and was suddenly filled with such a sense of PLACE. I had never before felt that way and I knew then, the only way you would get me out of here permanently is in a pine board box.
Now home is more to me than just a geographical place. It is my cottage, my friends, my loves, my animals. I missed them all and even that sense of missing someone, something is relatively new to me. I've not yet reconciled myself to its bittersweet pang, but I have learned to recognize it.
Yesterday when I gave myself over to some much needed sleep it was with such a sense of utter comfort and contentment. It was as if I was sleeping with arms around the entire embodiment of home, not just my pillow and a lazy, happy assortment of animals. I was home and with home I could rest, peacefully and fully.
This morning It felt odd to re enter my normal routine. The alarm went off. The circus of animals all asking for their good morning hello. The dog going in and out as she can't decide what she want worse the bathroom, or breakfast, or to play with her squeaky dinosaur.
I spent part of the morning trying to remember where I'd put my clean jeans before I left, finding a sweater as the mornings have turned chill, digging out my rain coat. repacking business cards collected at the show so I can log them and start my sales follow ups. Finding where I hid the power cord to the work laptop.
It's darker in the mornings now, but that will end next week with the time change. This morning everything was damp from the heavy fog. I stood carrying my tote bag and computer bag, and was glad for my new pumpkin colored winter coat.
And now...with my first cup of coffee sitting beside the computer and the relative quiet of a workplace not yet in full swing.
I reflect on how wonderful it feels to have a home in so many senses of the word.
I am blessed.
