Tag: home

Reflecting and Rebuilding

Considering
refurbishing
childhood home

Unrecognizable now
numerous makeovers
and even re-purposing

But my heart is invested
and well, I can see potential
and, oh…I know it will take work

All the walls I’ve torn down
and the excess furniture
and how I’ve imagined duplicity

Is this folly on my part
this revisionist thinking
see…I’m sure there is treasure

hidden amongst the forgotten
buried perhaps in the attic
or other overlooked nook

And as I remember it,
the backyard is an oasis –
Yes! I think I’ll do it!

Reflection and a good dose
of elbow grease, and I’m in!
Recreating an upbringing.

(for Eugi’s Weekly Prompt: reflection. Image my own.)

Finding Home

Do we have to be away
to find home?

Not the mortgaged
two cars in the driveway
double-income kind of dwelling

I’m talking peace
in the heart, comfort
in the soul, blessed home

I have felt Presence
in nature, witnessed Spirit
in a newborn’s eyes

beheld reverence in a dying
sister’s final breath – fleeting
glimpses, nothing solid

I seek an eternal sense
of belonging, of atonement
to radiate a knowing, holy calm

Don’t speak to me of books
or passages, or a brother
with the voice of God

The home I seek is
an inner sanctum
a whisper, a cry

a longing answered
only in moments of pure
simplicity, in stillness

this noise we create
this distancing, is only fear
and forgetting: products

of original separation
a projection of abandonment
remembering, experiencing

the numinous, the sacred other
brings me back home
and I am no longer lost.

(Finding Home was first published here in February of 2017. I resubmit an edited version for Reena’s Xploration challenge: sacred space. Image my own.)

Moving

The rumble of men’s voices
grunting shifts beneath
heavy wooden furnishings

The transition is underway
Broom and cloth at hand
I hover out of sight

Will erase each vestige of us
bless this passage, prepare
to welcome the new.

(Moving day! Prewritten for Eugi’s Causerie weekly prompt: transition. Image mine.
We will not have access to the internet for a few days. I hope to be back on the weekend.)

Moving Day

A single, blow-up bed
claims my stake
on this house

mostly empty –
dust remnants
of former occupants
rise at my passage –
I chase them

Renovation
will precede
settling in

yet, I will not leave
wrapping myself
in these walls

waiting for
the revelation
that this is home.

(Linked to V.J.’s weekly challenge: home.)

Moving

Outside, clouds hover,
heavy, threatening.

Inside, men haul –
china cabinet,
weathered couch –

accumulation
marking years,
exiting under duress

echoes fill in the spaces

scent of soured sweat lingers

kitchen counters
glare, empty

layers of our lives
stripped away

our vacated shell,
an emotional tug

Is it fear?  Sorrow?

What was it all about anyway?

closing the door behind us
locking memories in the past

we load our small boxes
essentials for a simpler life –
a home on wheels life

point our nose forward
and drive away
as the sun breaks through.

(A year ago, we sold our bricks and sticks house, along with its contents and moved into a motor home.  Now we are reversing the process – accumulating and setting up house again.  Apparently, we like change.  V.J’s weekly challenge is fittingly about home.)

Storing Energy

Comfortable is the state
I aspire to today –
lounging pants,
a weathered tee,
and a pace to match.

Tomorrow, we prepare:
finish up packing,
load the vehicle,
await the signal –
the house is ours!

Small town living
is the setting of choice –
Stonetown – quaint
shops, cottages of lime,
a river running through it

We’ll settle in amongst
other seniors, register
for local activities, walk
along the trails, and
visit nearby theaters

take the grandchildren
swimming in the quarry,
blue as it is deep –
water trampolines
and kayaks ready for fun.

Yet another adventure,
in our life of many –
so today, I rest, make plans,
nap – save my energy
for busy tomorrows.

(Thanks to Fandango for the daily prompt: comfortable, and to the Ragtag community for quarry.  The focus of my weekly challenge is home. Love it if you’d join me.)

A Cup of Tea

My husband and I recently returned from a trip to the US, and as usual, the first thing I wanted on return was a cup of tea.  It is the one thing – next to my own bed- that I miss the most  when I am away.

What is it about a cup of tea?

Raised by a Brit, tea is part of my heritage.  Growing up, we started every day with a cup of tea, and quite often ended each day with one also.  I especially remember that as teenagers, my siblings and I would convene at the end of a night out and share stories over a late night cup of tea.  Every dinner would end with someone putting the kettle on.

My children’s father was also a Brit, and he introduced me to tea time – a ritual cup every day at four o’clock, always accompanied by a sweet or biscuit.

The secret, not practiced in many restaurants, is in the preparation:  the pot must be warmed first, and the boiling water added to the tea and not the other way around.  In our family, the milk went in the cup first, with just the right amount of sweetener to offset any bitterness.

Special tea, a concoction of mostly warm milk and honey, with a splash of tea, is a family recipe for curing childhood ailments.

I don’t drink tea in the afternoon anymore as the caffeine keeps me up at night, and I have replaced the milk with non-dairy alternatives, but I still have a sense that all is not well unless I’ve started the day with that one lingering cup of tea, prepared just the way I like it.

Ahhh, the simple luxuries of home.

(Image: officemum.blogspot.com)