Ahh, Home!
As my mind slowly rises from the depths of sleep, I awaken in a state of pure, leisurely relaxation. The birds outside my windows are singing, but otherwise, I am surrounded by stillness of the sort that fuels my soul. More than a quarter-century of rising to the rhythm, the feel, the air, the sounds of this place has made of it an exceptional spot to call home.
It was a seven-hundred mile drive to get here yesterday. After four weeks away (wonderful in their way): Home! It is good. I vaguely heard gentle rain dropping onto the roof outside my bedroom window overnight, but never the inch and a quarter reported by the rain gauge this morning. It must have thundered down at some point. The deep sleep of travel fatigue is like that.
My mother always said that people sleep better in their own beds, and she was right. There’s just something sublime about being welcomed by crisp, clean, cool sheets when crawling into bed. The mom-ingrained habit of making my bed honors my place of rest. Straightening the bed in the morning yields fresh and welcoming covers at day’s end, a sweet reward, a daily gift to myself.
That gift is best when I’m in my own bed at home. My exceptional good fortune to have a place like this never escapes me. It is peaceful beyond measure, sweet with a limitless endowment of natural beauty in its modest, undramatic midwestern way. Right now, freshly rinsed by rain overnight, I see every shade of green among the leaves, evergreen needles, bushes, wild grasses, lawn - an endless canvas. The milkweed that volunteered in the south meadow is blooming, its scent intoxicating. The fireflies are resting from their night of searching for their mates, blink-blink, in the north and western meadows. The overcast sky is a curtain drawn across the hot sun today, bringing relief from recent high heat.
I pad down the stairs, taking in the welcome view of the rooms that have sat quiet, waiting for my return. The morning light is soft. The old grandfather clock is silently waiting to be restarted, and I notice that the house plants need water. There is spider webbing in the sliding doors to the deck, which needs to be swept—but all this can wait while I sip some hot tea and let home come back in to me. “I love where I live,” I whisper, again and again.
Later, I attend to the more prosaic tasks of my return. Unpacking. Staging things to go to their rightful places. Opening up the office. Plugging in the computer and switching on the printer. I am busy on the three-season porch when a noise in the yard prompts me to look up. Two turkey hens and five youngsters are just outside. The hens caught my movement and are on alert, the poults likewise frozen. I wait. They wait, too, until finally the hens carry on. One moves with the five youngsters up the rise by the white pines, but the other circles worriedly in the yard. After a minute that feels longer, another poult glides down to her from a tree in the forest edge, then another. Yes! By now, I have moved to watch from the chest-high office window, and smile to see another baby fly over and join the group waiting in the upper yard. And then! Three more come clucking by just under the window, intent on joining the others. Eleven poults! That’s more like it. I was wondering why there were so few young.
So many times I have happily shared this place with flocks of turkeys and many other wild animals as they pass through. I always stop and watch them all, but I really love the turkeys. One minute they are clucking and bobbing (although if you’re not looking, it is easy to miss even that scene). Then, suddenly they are just...gone, like a puff of smoke.
Smiling in gratitude for their brief visit, I turn back to my tasks. I think, that’s how wildlife tends to be: quiet. Yes. Just like home.
