Our German shepherd/husky/whatever dog Grreta has been very happy in the last couple of months. Living as she does in the Southwest, she suffers heat beyond the imaginings of her double coat, and thunderstorms (which she has decided are in fact incoming mortars) all summer, and stickers and cactus quills in the desert. But, BUT, in the high desert here, sometimes there's snow. And when there's snow, Grreta's content; she will trample a nest for herself in it, and lie down with a huge sigh -- all the summer's anxieties are lifted with the comfort of her genetic home. She curls up in her burrow, drapes the tassel on the end of her tail over her nose to keep the warmth and moisture contained, and sleeps as solidly as I have ever seen her. Now that the snow layer is shrinking, Grreta's burrow is ever more circumscribed, and she clings to the last of the drift with grim determination. It will be a sad day for us all when the ground has returned to its dusty natural state.
In the meantime,in observing her quiet peace there, I have had cause to consider Home. It's a concept that I have never quite grasped, since I've never really dug into a place, only found convenient and affordable campsites every few years. (I calculate that this latest move to New Mexico in 2003 was something like my life's fifty-fifth complete household move.) There wasn't much choice in the matter when I was a child: the Marine Corps merrily yanked us around every year or two, and we learned the art of the fast settle-in: immediate social calls on the neighbors, find a school and here we go. I thought everybody lived like that; certainly most of the people I associated with did so, and when I found myself in a "civilian" school I adapted readily, took their damned placement tests (I was a master of the placement test, always a certifiable genius in the eyes of the new school because it would be the fourth or seventh time I'd taken the exact same test), and studied closely and quickly the new culture I found myself in. One or two fistfights with the local bullies, and I became seamlessly integrated. Then, as life became routine, even predictable (dare I say dull?), there would be another posting. Sometimes a move was wrenching, and as I grew toward adolescence it became harder and harder to leave friends and connections, but that, as Oprah says, is another show.
What was constant and comforting and familiar was my immediate family, our furnishings, our collective knapsack, asitwere. The place, the house, had very little to do with my sense of belonging, and as long as I could memorize my address and phone number in the first few days, I was really quite safe. (Of course at many postings there was a division of Marines, commanded by my father, on whom I could count to keep me safe. There aren't very many people who can match that for sheer physical security.) The dynamics within the home weren't very calm (we were a family of exuberant and frequent strife) but it was what I knew, and for the most part I lived benignly neglected -- the baby of the family, and therefore I was not a threat nor even very interesting -- and that was okay with me.
Over time, I have come to know people for whom the institution of Home is their very life blood, though they seem sometimes to think it's a mixed blessing, that years and years of living in the pockets of the same few dozen people can wear on one, stifle the mind, restrict the adventuresome spirit. Robert Frost's definition, "Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in," reflects that ambivalence; there's some divine ordinance that we have to take in and live with even the most undesirable of our close relations. We open the door and there they are: the dirty and hungry, probably wet and ill-clothed, those undesirables -- the black sheep, I assume, or the ne'er-do-wells, the prodigals, the ones whose miscalculated adventures left them with no choice but to return to the place where they are taken in but overtly resented and despised. Doesn't sound very homey, for either party, but then Frost, it has been revealed, was not a homey kind of guy; a trial to his family, he was resentful and stubborn and cranky most of the time.
Anyway, there is a place where I am learning about Home. I have an old friend who has watched and wept with me in my most soul-wrenching times, and his house has become my Home. Several states away, it nevertheless is where I know I can go and be accepted, loved, even prized; I am well beyond tolerated -- my company is sought and dearly appreciated. They think I'm funny and smart, and they tell me so. They make me laugh, they want their children to know me. They feed me wonderful food that they've prepared themselves. They listen to my stories, they offer good advice when I ask for it, and don't when I don't.
The last time I visited I was a little chilly in my bed, and had no idea where to find extra blankets. After a few hours of shivering, just when I was close to despair and ready to get up and dress myself for mere warmth, I felt a quiet presence and turned to see the woman placing a down comforter over me, pulling it up over my shoulders. I could see her smile in the half-dark; she hummed something unimportant and went back to her bed.
Once I went there at the beginning of the worst cold I had had in decades. I was sneezing and blowing and dripping; I couldn't hear very well because the ear that ISN'T 40% deaf was blocked off from all nuanced conversation; I carried a Kleenex box around with me, and scattered the used tissues like sodden, greenish snowflakes; I was barely responsive; I had made them invite over to dinner OTHER local friends whom I hadn't seen in years, and I was simply too sick to do the minimal bridging required when throwing two sets of people together. In spite of, or because of, my distress, these people just took care of me throughout my time there. I was not a stranger, nor a guest, but like a child at Home.
Imagine that.
