Robert Frost wrote and said many brilliant things in his long life. He wrote The Mending Wall, Fire and Ice, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. He quipped "In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on," a statement that seems to grace every high school graduates Facebook wall at some point or another. He read at John F. Kennedy's inauguration and is lauded as one of the giants of American literature along with Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Twain.
That intro sounds a little bit like the intro to a American Lit paper in college, and I am sorry for that, but I must admit that Frost is probably my favorite author to read along with Stephen King and Pat Conroy. I got to thinking about old Bobby Frost tonight because I am going home for the first time in almost 2 months Wednesday, and whenever I head home one quote pops into my head.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Every time that I get in the car, or the plane, or the whatever to go home after a long absence I think of that quote. Whether I am driving my old Buick through the Blue Ridge mountains from Western, or back to the piedmont from Chapel Hill, I think about that quote. Home is where they have to take you in. Where they won't shut the door and fasten the latch when I shake the dust from my shoes on the porch. Where I can always find something to eat without feeling guilty for mooching. Home is where things just feel right.
When I think of home, I think of a myriad of things. Home is seeing my twin brother and asking him to play catch in the front yard, whipping the ball from the driveway to the edge of our yard no matter what the weather is and how in shape our arms are. It is sitting down to talk ball with my dad and watching the hours slip away as we talk about all of the plays and stories that we've seen. Home is walking in the front door of my mom's house and talking about the books that we love and hate. Home is her helping me bust out of the terrible writers block I am stuck in, or looking over a paragraph that she can't quite end the right way. Home is knowing the way to my gramma's house even if it had been months since I have been there. It's knowing that I will smell brownies or cookies, or a delicious southern meal as I walk in the door.
It has been a shamefully long time since I have been home. I feel really bad about letting two months go by and not seeing the people who have known me the longest. I've been painfully busy with work and an internship, but I don't feel like that is a valid excuse. I should have figured out a way to make it two hours down the road at some point in the last couple of months.
The good news is that I am going home Wednesday, and spending four glorious days seeing my family without any worries of work or bills or anything. I get to chill with both of my brothers, have lunch with my gramma, and zip line; that is just Wednesday. I don't know the rest of the itinerary of my visit, but I know that it will go my much too fast and I will have to go back to the real world sooner than I would like.
Home. Just thinking about it makes me wish tomorrow flies by and I am heading west down I-40 with blue skies pointing me in the right direction.
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