dinner conversations with a five, going on six, year old...

Son: When I'm big, I'm not going to high school.

Me: Where are you going to go?

Son: Kindergarten! When I'm little!

Me: What about when you're big?

Son: I'm not going to high school.

Me: What are you going to do?

Son: Stay home! Every day!

Me: What are you going to do at home?

Son: Play games, on pbskids.org, and read my books, and play with my toys, and look at pictures, and look at flowers, and eat pizza.



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Simple Pleasures

The wind is blowing ever so slightly out there, outside my window. A small airplane hums; I can hear it but not see it. I can hear the saw of our neighbor next door, working on something. All faint, these sounds, quiet and purposeful.

All shades of green and gold and brown, amber, yellow, burnt orange, lime, umber - all flick and swish and quiver in the wind. Massive trees and new young trees, against the best kind of Northwestern sky. Dove grey, pale blue, soft light.

New shelves adorn my office, thanks to my husband.

Wait - holy anachronism, Batman! A ginormous stretch limo, black with a pale pearly gray top, just drove past my idyllic view. Turned down Benefit Street. Wow. Who was in there? Why are they out in a stretch limo on a sleepy fall Sunday afternoon, in our quiet little neighborhood?

Well. Now. Where was I?

Too late, I'm off on a limo wonder. It's turning the other corner now, heading out of site. Did a neighbor get a new job as a driver? Coming to show his family his new gig? Did someone get rich and decide to celebrate in a really weird way?

Anyway. Maybe it's a good reminder of pleasures that are not so simple. That take way more gasoline than that crow who just swooped by. That smell differently than the fall bouquet I had so much fun making an hour or so ago (dark green shiny laurel, fading red tree branch, orange & green & yellow & red maple, bright golden wisteria curling on long brown twisty branches, a pale yellow sunflower, a bright gold sunflower, hydrangea turning deep wonderful maroon, and one lone cornflower blue hydrangea to remind me of summer).

And now there is a house to clean, laundry to fold, a bed to make up with fresh sheets. And a dinner to make for friends coming over. Fish and sausage and chicken on the grill, squash, brown rice sauteed with red and yellow and green peppers and the last of the basil and green beans.

It is our first fall here in Seattle since 2006. Three years.

I am in love with my home.



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I'm home, I'm home, I'm home, I'm home!

I feel like there is an 8 or 9 year old girl, skipping inside me, singing.



"I'm home, I'm home, I'm home, I'm home!"



I knew it would be good to be back, good for my family to come home to Seattle. Good to leave San Diego, which just wasn't right for us.



But I honestly had no idea I'd be so HAPPY to be back here. Back in Seattle, cold & wet & all.



Every moment, every omen has been rich with blessing. Our families and friends opened arms and homes and hearts to us. We landed at our mid-wife's home, and slept under skylights that looked up at the stars. And then, almost immediately, we found our home.



A beautiful little house, on south Beacon Hill, with a great big yard just waiting for our gardens. I sit, right now, in my office, my own tiny office at the front of the house, with two huge windows and one little port-hole that all look out on trees and sky - I feel like I'm in a little boat. Especially today, a rainy old day.

Other signs of homecoming: my husband going right back to work. Me getting calls for part-time, contract work, for vocal coaching and grant-writing and teaching. Finn playing with friends and family.

And now, after a few weeks here, our house becomes our home, with furniture coming in, gifts from friends and Goodwill treasures, boxes getting unpacked for the first time in nearly two years - boxes we never even managed to open in California.

And even deeper, richer signs of homecoming on another level - I have been writing.

I have been writing.

I have been writing, for myself, for reading aloud, for others to read, just beginning to stretch muscles that have been dormant and quiet for so long. I have a novel starting. I have a new performance piece. Wanna hear part of it? It's about mom-ing. I actually just posted it on Facebook, and realized it belongs in a piece. I'm gonna post it here, right after this one.

Two posts in one day. Makes up for three weeks away.







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