Home

I'm going home. Louisiana home. Family reunion home. I'll be among the people I came from. I'll be looking at their faces and seeing parts of my own. I'll be hugging the old gently and grabbing the young by their middles to swing them around and tease them about school and sports and how much they've changed. I'll eat homegrown this and homebaked that until I burst.

My dad will ask me how I'm doing now that I'm on my own at least a dozen times. With that serious look on his face. I'll say, "fine, Daddy." I'll sit by him on the couch and we'll find a John Wayne movie on tv if we're lucky. "Shane" if we're luckier. We'll say all the good parts out loud together and everyone else will abandon the living room.

I haven't wanted to go home for a while. But something has turned in me. Now it's a longing. I see each familiar mile between here and there flicking by in my mind already. I see the interstate give way to the highway and the highway turns just so and there is that curve by the fairgrounds and then the long driveway. I see my dad come out of the house and down the steps of the porch. He's been looking for us. I'm home in my mind. Now I just have to get there.