This month the assignment for Artistic License was to write about HOME. It is a challenging subject for me since I am currently living with my brother, with no clear home of my own. These types of assignments lead me down a thought path of questions such as: what is home, where is home, and is home defined by me, those that live in it or both? Instead of writing about the +14 different places I’ve lived over the years, I decided to go inward, or backwards, to a moment in my childhood that is ONE definition of home to me. Here it is:
Like a hermit crab, I carry my house around. Attached to my memory enduringly fixed to the mind’s eye reminiscent of a freckle on the iris.
Such a summer day it was, the kind you record every sound and smell.
Was I 12 or 13? Was it July or August? Was it closer to one o’clock or two?
My childhood home on 9th Street. The home was empty; the family out in town, at a game, in the garden. Me? Napping atop my bed spread. Drifting into the lazy summer day.
The window wide open, yellow curtains being caressed by a breeze. A lawn mower or two run in the background. Neighborhood kids on bikes shouting commands, dogs bark for no reason. …I’m in love.
For a moment in time, one that guards my heart in crisis, the peace was seen, heard and felt- and accepted. I owned that day. I return to that day many times as only memories will allow.
This is my home…
shannon p. laws 