You can go home

I'm spending the week at my mother's house in Illinois. It's on a lake -- beautiful setting especially this year. With all the rain everything is emerald green.

I didn't grow up here. That was in another much smaller house on the other side of town. Still, this one feels like home too -- after 35 years. My days here have been great and taken on a restful pattern that's going to be hard to let go on Saturday when we have to fly back to UK. I'd originally written "home to the UK", but then realized that (a) it doesn't feel like home (even though that's where my stuff is) and (b) even if it did, it wouldn't feel like that for long because we're moving back to US.

I've been getting up early here -- unusual for me. Probably caused by six hours jet lag. And "early" is a relative term. Earlier than my mom and wife is what I really mean, but no earlier than 6:30am and today it was 8:00am. Still, for me, early.

I pull on yesterday's shorts and tee-shirt. Slap barefooted down the driveway to pull the newspaper from the box. Come back and push the button to start the coffee brewing. Mom's always prepared everything the night before. Aren't moms great? How do they do that? Then I slide open the door to go out and sit in a chair on the upper deck eating a cinnamon roll and drinking a glass of OJ while I read the paper. It's been wonderfully cool in the mornings, too cool some mornings. The sun's been out and it's so quiet!

Birds are singing. A wren's made a nest in the birdhouse hanging under the deck. I love her song, impossible to imitate. Always reminds me of my grandparents' house. A "jenny wren", as my grandfather called her, used to perch on his hat when he worked in the garden. A wren's not much bigger than your thumb. When her babies finally fly out they seem the size of big bumble bees. And you only get to see them once if you're lucky. The big blue heron flew down the lake at sunset last night. He's at the other end of the bird spectrum. You have to look twice to make sure you're not seeing an airplane if he's just gliding along. The cardinals have a distinctive call, and the doves, of course. Now in July the Canada goose babies are as big as their parents. The only thing funnier than watching them learn to fly is watching them learn to land.

Mom's cat, George, likes nothing better than to sit at the door and look at this bird channel outside. Viewing is better in the winter, though, when the leaves are gone and the bird feeders are out.

Yesterday a big groundhog lumbered across the backyard. Looked like a stubby legged barrel. Fun to see but not good to have around ... industrial strength tunnellers and hungry plant eaters. From the size of him someones garden has been taking a real hit.

Last night driving home from eating out, we saw a deer standing in the meadow next to the road at the entrance to the subdivision. In all my years it's the first time I've seen one here. Mom says current record is seeing eight in her back yard one time. Also not good to have around if you like nice gardens, but with all the cornfields near by, I guess they have better things to eat than marigolds and petunias.

I caught a couple fish in the lake: the village idiot and his slightly less intelligent younger brother. Large mouth bass. Fun to catch. I showed off the bigger one to my wife, carrying it dripping through the house into the bedroom, just as my dad would've done. Her reaction? Not "Well done" as I might have hoped, no. She says, "Put it back. It's still alive. Put it back. Eeee. Put it back." Well, of course. I just wanted my pat on the head.

We played golf yesterday. Mom smacks that ball at age 87 with her new Cleveland driver -- arrow straight, which I consider unfair. Wife is just learning: as un-straight as Mom is straight, but wife just hits it a mile. We were having a great time right up to the point it started raining and I heard a clap of thunder. That did it; we were in. I was shooting one of my better rounds of golf, but I'm a baby when it comes to lightning. Yes, the odds of getting hit are small, but the penalty for getting hit outweighs it by so much that I just hoof it when I hear thunder.

After newspaper and coffee in the morning, I sit here at the computer and try to write my few dozen words. Soon Wife and Mom will be up and the day will start in earnest.

And this is home. And why am I leaving? I don't know. Maybe I won't.