Home Again/Where It Lives

A week later, and I'm back in the same little room, in the same quiet.  

I've been to the Midwest and back, touched my old place for a moment, my old bed for a night, my old mother and her softening back, my old dog and his firm gray chin.  I took a seat by my father at dinner and watched his eyes go dark and bright as we took turns speaking around the table "out of concern," my sisters said, "for your health."  

But now I'm home, here I am at home again.  

  

K's parents are in town for the holidays.  I've tried to avoid them for as long as possible, until I accidentally walked in on them sitting together in the dark, watching their grown son sleep on the couch.  

"Oh, hello," they greeted me in quiet pleasant voices, "We're just letting this guy nap before his gig at the Moon tonight."   

I've never seen a family like this before.  He is their only one, their greatest adventure, their living hope, their best love.  From Mother and Son to Son and Father and Husband and Wife, there is no gap, no loose end, nothing forgotten.  They will sit together and speak with each other in the same language each time.  

"It smells good in here," I whispered back and shuffled into the kitchen to put my groceries away.  No small part of me lunges to resent them for the clarity of their relationships.  When he speaks well of "the folks," not even a stitch of irony sullies his tone.  This drives me insane.  Mock them! I want to howl, They are your parents.  Tell me you aren't for real!

But truth is a patient and ruthless thing.  I'm coming up on a year with this one and it turns out that this whole thing's for real.  He truly loves them, and they truly raised him as best they could.  So when the muscles in my back start coiling, and my mouth starts flooding, I have to run the tape of things I know to be true:

My family is fucked up.

Not every family is fucked up.

The un-fucked up families are not a threat to me.

I want love to live where it lives.

I want love to live where it lives.

The tape ran tonight as we made quiet conversation about the airports and the weather, a small cluster of flowers on the kitchen sill, New Year's Eve and the upcoming smoking ban.  As we talked, I stacked canned black beans and tins of sardines in the cupboard, cut into bags of cashews and dried cranberries and almonds, listened with one ear to the gentle drumming of the fruit and nuts as I stirred it all together.    

  

   

Photo credit: Alec Soth from "The Last Days of W."