Send those puppies home

I sent the puppies home today. And while I expected to spend their last day here immersed in puppy kisses and fun, my grown-up life got in the way and I barely saw them.

So, now I'm home after dealing with some slap-in-the-face reality only to be thinking about Home.

"Home, it's were I want to be, pick me up and turn me round."

Home for me is a big old house on a lake in Wisconsin. It's long summer days melting into hot summer nights. It's fingers dangling over the edge of the canoe, skimming the surface, drifting through the afternoon. It's the first jump of the season off the high dive. It's sunburned skin scraping crisp cool sheets. It's 4-handed solitaire while the storm beats against the windows. It's the whole family filling up the long table, Grampa at the head, the youngest cousin at the foot, laughter. It's soft, cool moss that only grows along one side of the driveway, squishing between my toes. It's ice in a glass, waiting for the splash of gin, a little tonic, the lime. It's the gazebo, the boathouse, the bridge across the pond. Bratwurst on the grill, watermelon in the cooler. It's a damp pillow after a late-night skinny dip.

Home. It's more of a time than a place for me. I left it more often than I returned, certain that I could recreate it wherever I went. The timelessness of childhood slowly makes way for the busy-ness of being grown up.

I'd like to think I gave that kind of Home to these puppies. They got to be wild and rowdy before they go off and learn the rules.

Home. "Guess that this must be the place." [thank you Talking Heads c.1983]