the idea of home

for many reasons, i don't even want to make sentences on this subject. words make it real. what i can do is backtrack since the past seems somewhat safer than the word future.

twenty years & four months ago, i graduated from college with a bfa in graphics and married my college sweetheart who had already graduated&moved to los angeles four months prior. after the wedding, we packed up my art supplies and set up home in koreatown (wilshire&western) and then later in the midwilshire area. breakfast came from the la brea bakery & life was righteous.

page was accepted into the master's program at art center college of design & rewarded a scholarship so he worked & schooled it while i took a bus down wilshire to my job in westwood for dr. armand hammer. babysage came three years later & four months after his birth, page received his mfa. three months later, we packed up babyboi & more art supplies in a uhaul and moved across this great country to brooklyn, new york. i will never forget the first morning when i walked across the street to the deli for two cups of coffee. did i want it regulah? (milk & sugar) the moment mr. deli*man said those words, i knew that i was finally home.

less than two years later, boothiebaby was born at st. vincent's in the village and three years later, vvgirl was born at methodist in brooklyn. we were so broke and so rich at the same time. prospect park fed us mentally (& spiritually in a way) and we did what my grandma always said to do all those years --- 'sometimes, you just have to keep on keepin' on.'

page started a windowwashing business (yes, THOSE windows!) and i started my business from home and mothered around the clock. the boys went to PS 154 across the street and new york hugged us. i have never met nicer people than new yorkers. when tony soprano starts up with his axecent, he suddenly becomes a stonefox. i love newyorkspeak as much as i luv me some new york.

years later, we lost our apartment to the landlord's son and we couldn't afford to buy anything. for lack of better words, we didn't own a pot to piss in. page found a job in new hampshire and we packed up the babies (and yes, art supplies) and moved to rural new hampshire where our address was "route 123, grey house on the right" (i couldn't make this up.) and we lived there for fifteen months in a haunted house with two spirits, one actually would tuck vv in at night. we had bears, moose, black flies and a peeping tom. the growing season was short but it rocked. i dug a garden, had a rhubarb patch and raspberries around the perimeter. we had pick*your*own blueberries & apple orchards down the road.

page wanted to come back to texas and that was to be our last move. we saved up enough for a downpayment and bought this house. we poured our hearts and backs into it. i gardened & fell in love with this little lot of land & this house.

the arrow is pointing north and this is where i stop thinking.