Home.  I have chewed on the concept and the actual location of the place for a long time.  I have lived in places where I never felt at home, sometimes gradually finding enough of my people in those places to hold on and not wither away. I lived in places that felt like home, left them with every intention of coming back, never to return. There are places in-between—places where I felt some connection with the air of the place and made important friendships. Boston is one of those places. I moved from Jersey to Cambridge in the middle 70’s to live with David. He had been at Brandeis, dropping out to play in the pit band of the show, Lenny, and then just staying on.  I liked the city then and the neighborhoods in Somerville and Cambridge where we lived.  I was willing to move back to somewhere around here after we finished our degrees. David wanted NYC as home and very certainly, I fell in love with NYC and had no regrets. 

We never returned together to Boston, and when we left NYC for the midwest, I forgot that I had feelings for Boston, the place. 

And I did not quite realize, when I lived in Madison for twelve years, how much that had grown to be a home. It was a hard place to leave. Not the home that I came from, I will never be a midwesterner but the place with the people who supported me, and Julia, those first years of her with us and all the years after David left.  

Last week, Julia, Ed and I spent a few days in Madison.  For Julia and I, it was a homecoming, something like those so many years when we lived in Indy  and travelled back to NYC for visits. Yes, there is still a quiet, glorious familiarity with the place and the people who gave me big hugs and wanted to know things I had not written here. 

For Julia, she rushed into the back garden of the house we used to live in when we visited our neighbor.  Both of us warning her not to charge the gate but charge the gate she did.  She did no harm and the present owners were not home, so there was no need for embarrassment. Six years ago when we moved east from Madison, I did not realize how hard it would be for Julia to leave. Likewise, last week, I did not think about what she would feel coming back. 

June is a gorgeous month in Wisconsin.  So much green and flowers and the evening light is very soft and seems to last forever. And I sat on porches and in kitchens and in favorite restaurants and asked and answered and just talked. In almost six years, I have built some connections in Newton through FUUSN – church – and HILR  – Harvard. – mostly, and of course, Ed, but apart from Ed, the connections are not what my Madison connections were and are. Sometimes I still come up short for things to talk about at coffee hour after church. I feel tentative and need to muster up some spirit inside to be bold and friendly.

I had not thought about missing Madison and the home we made there. I have not thought about how deep our roots were sunk into the gardens I made and the people who hugged me last week. I forgot that for me home is people and dirt, everything else seems to be negotiable. 

And so, I returned to Newton, just a bit sad not to be as at home as I was in the red house at the corner of Emerson and Lowell Streets. Happy to be reminded of one reason for moving the day after returning—most of a whole day with Cheshire and the boys, picking strawberries and looking at pigs. And this morning, waking after a bit of a few days funk to remember that I was in Madison for 12 years, half the time I have spent in Newton. I hold out hope that this place too will feel like a holy home one day and ever so grateful for the knowledge that I can go back home to Madison for hugs and long sits on porches and kitchens.

A hearty wave and virtual hugs to all of my Madison people. Thank you from my heart for last week. There is always a place for you to stay in Newton.