I have to remind myself that assuming my mother goes before I do, it would be 20 times harder for me to empty out that house, than whatever condo she buys.

erika, I think it makes sense from a financial POV, if nothing else. Owning doesn't mean you can't leave.

I never had that, because we moved too much, but wanted it so very much

We moved around a lot, too. As a result, I've never associated "home" with a physical structure. Home is a feeling of belonging even when the people you are mad at you; where people love you even if they don't like you so much right then; where they will always let you use their toilet and eat their food; but mostly, it's always been where my mom is. The sound of her voice, the way she rarely sits still, the smell of her cooking.

Even at 37, I still equate "home" with "Mom." But over the past 5 years or so, my apartment has also become "home" to me in a different way.

I long ago came to the realization that I could cope alone. Life without Amy or Hubby would be much less of a life, but as the expectation of security has fallen away from my life, it's been replaced by a sort of stoic endurance.

I'm happiest in various places, but I hold no certain hope of ever getting to live there. It's all come back to one thing: Home is me.

It's all come back to one thing: Home is me.

connie, I think that's the exact place I'm well on my way to.

Home is a feeling of belonging

This is true for me, on a lot of levels, but I grew up with a real fear of death, too. Of abandonment, I guess. I think I've always wanted the security of that one physical structure where all the tangible evidence of lives gone would be -- and somewhere safe to stay, to hide if necessary, to put down my own roots if I wanted to. To shelter the people that made up "home" for me.

Clearly, more psychoanalysis is necessary.

I could write a bazillion home drabbles that hurt like hell - in fact, I've written a few and posted most of them here - but the one I'm having trouble with was the complete oddity of our 1983 honeymoon (London, Amsterdam, Paris). We were looking around for a reasonable place to stay in London and we ended up in my grandmother's old house in London. The bedroom she (edited for clarity: she being most recent owner, who turned it into a B&B) gave us was once a mudroom and part of storage closet. The enormous oak in the garden was still there. So was the cracked stained glass in two of the upper panes of the dining room windows.

It was fucking creepy, but also very cool. I kept my mouth shut about it for years - it seemed, I don't know, almost talismanic, an omen, something. Marta stayed there, too.

I think this is non-specific enough to post safely in public. For Home, longer than drabble length by a bit

Everywhere and Nowhere

Once upon a time....

All good stories start out that way. This one starts out with live music, and a girl.

Somewhere along the road, the girl fell in love. Her big sister, the journalist, took her places, always backstage: the Dead, Woodstock, Altamont. The girl was ornamental, but different: decisive, smart, dangerous. She said yes to one or two, no to the rest. She loved one.

Home was backstage, in the dressing room, watching from the wings. She was always glad to be there, sorry to be there, impatient to take him and leave. It never happened, of course, the leaving. It was his schedule, not hers. It was his life, her time.

The man is long dead, and so, apparently, is the girl. The woman remembers, and goes home on her own terms, when her memories permit.

I'm having issues.

Everyone who has read Safe Harbor from Ann Arbor (the story of ita and I cohabitating) says, "I love this, it's too short."

I feel like lengthening it, getting into the personal stuff of it is a violation of ita's privacy, more than I'm comfortable with.

I'm not sure where to go with it, but when everyone gives that exact same feedback, I have to find some way to elaborate.

Allyson, I don't remember - is that one the inaurgural essay in the book?

Nope, I think the inaugural is going to be the title essay.