Closer to Home

Pushing back from the gate
Already feeling a little
Closer to home.
A quarter of the globe
Left to travel,
Yet those few lengths
Bring me comfort.
My return's begun.

Through my journey
I've held the line.
Photos, messages and calls.
Loosely connecting me
Back to the familiar
Comforts of home.
Reminders of where
My heart rests.

In the stillness
I feel my love
Calling me gently,
"Come on home."
Wandering wearily
Cutting a chill dawn
One after the next
My feet tread.

With each step,
Each moment
I grow more
Closer to home.
Mind calmed
Envisioning where
This journey will end
My spirit sings.

Special Privileges

What special privileges do you extend to those for whom you have affinity?  Do you let your favorite neighborhood kid mow your lawn rather than hire the job out professionally at an insignificantly higher rate?  Do you have a special bar that you go to with your best buddy that you wouldn't take your wife to?  Do you always hold your Saturday nights open for your significant other before all others?  Do you only put together model planes with just that one nephew?  Do you share a long-running inside joke with one of your co-workers that no one else gets let in on?  Do you have a "thing" that's just between you and someone special to you?
When this privilege is meaningful to you, how do you know that you should extend it to the person fortunate enough to have exclusive access to it?  Do you expect it to be accepted most every time it's extended?  Do you need to see appreciation for the gesture?  Do you have to know that they want that "thing" to be reserved just for them?
How do you deal with others who would like to have the privilege of sharing that "thing" with you, either in addition to the privileged individual or instead of him/her?  Does it validate the significance of the privilege you extend exclusively to another?  Does it cause you to feel that the special "thing" is enviously coveted by others?  Do you feel threatened, annoyed or angered by others attempts to gain access to the "thing"?  Does it provide a sense of security that you may be able to still enjoy that "thing" if the privilege is neglected?
Questions like this have led me to realize that I am deeply sentimental.  It's a wake-up call to know that not everyone can understand and appreciate the sentiment in the extension of special privilege. Knowing this, and knowing that I do need others to understand and appreciate the privileges I reserve just for them, is invaluable in my efforts to continually learn to better navigate life.

Train Whistle

It has lived in me for years
Wielding unparalleled force
This simple sound

A sound so prominent, unmistakable
Carried on the wind, or piercing
Through the still of night

It dutifully serves as a reminder
A reminder of days long past
The way things used to be

An enduring, lonely yearning, hunkering low
There in that wail
We know love

Country

I realized today why I am drawn to many things "country".  When I got in my car this morning to head to work my radio was tuned, as usual, to the local country station.  I don't even remember now what song was on, but that's when it hit me...everything country brings me comfort, a sense of warmth and safety - a sense of home.

Country, bluegrass, string and old-time music; big ol' trucks & tractors; beat-up baseball caps and well-worn jeans, peanuts in a Coke; cowboy hats, boots & belt buckles; whiskey; hayrides; sweet southern drawls; porch swings and rocking chairs; firefly-lighted hay fields; farm houses and old barns; far away train-whistle blows; incoming storm breezes rollin' through the trees; sweet iced tea, biscuits, black-eyed peas, collard greens and southern-fried everything; catchin' catfish on moonlit ponds; pistols and shotguns; good ol' huntin' dogs; honky-tonk bars; heat lightning in a summer sky; Sunday afternoon picnics; cut-off jeans, simple cotton sundresses & big, floppy hats; pigtails & braids; chivalry of southern gentlemen; warm evening berry pickin'; starry-skied lakeside truck-bed cuddling; lil' cabins in the woods; county fair livestock shows; window-sill cooled fresh peach pie; rain on a tin roof; great big family reunions. These are all things I love to think of, to have, and to know. These are all things I love.

The strangest part of all of this is that not all of these things are things that I grew up with, yet they are still soothing, romantic and familiar to me.  Even for all of the aspects of my personality and life that can't be so easily and deeply identified with that of a down-home country girl, I know that at my core I am at least a little bit country and always will be.