Shared Thoughts of 4 Former English Students

i've got you beat on length of time, cd. i lived in my "home" from 6 mos. to 18 yrs. old, returned for summers from 19-20, returned for 5 yrs. from 26-31 and here i am again, home sweet home. no beautiful acres, but there's grass to be cut, the same cracks in the sidewalk and patched holes in the driveway. the dogwood blooms the same white flowers (but not really) the elm sweeps out over the sky, the maple sends it's helicopter petals down to the ground, the sycamore makes its spiral staircase to the sky, and the ash...well, the ash i never paid attention to. apparently it puts out these little clumpy seeds with a cluster of brush-like tentacles extending from the center. they're everywhere this year, but strangely, i had no idea what they were until i asked mom. maybe home is a place that's always growing, revealing something new when we're ready . . . home is not a place where we are completely happy and content. home is a place we love unconditionally-- any place we are willing to love unconditionally, with its surprises, its routines, good and bad memories, shouts and whispers, tears and laughs . . . home (for now) is us. i'll find a place someday where it and me are the same, but i don't think it's coming in this life. for now home is just me. i suspect when that place comes around it just might be everywhere.

there's a good concrete answer for ya.

bl