home is an interesting concept for me.

a few times a year, i travel across the great atlantic and arrive in your arms.
during one (or both, if  it happens to happen) of those auspicious visits, we usually deliver ourselves into the bosom of italy.
when ma-mah comes to pick me up, and takes me to tucumcari,  there is always a sense of peace upon arriving.

and now, in my own very first house (rented, of course),
i’m scrambling around like a monkey on the old fashion coca-cola,
trying to pull my house into a home.
i’ve been here for weeks, and it only just struck me to start taking my new habitat seriously.
i hung up frames, lanterns, moved around furniture, knick knacks began to adorn lonely corners, hectic drawers became submissive under my crazed ministrations…

then (five hours into it all) my housemate says to me:
a home takes time.

a simple (so simple!) notion.
one that stopped me in my tracks a few hours later after i had finished.
why, i had never grown up that way!
whenever we moved to the next base, for fajia’s next assignment,
whichever house we chose became like a home, within a week!
i had no idea that the civilians(?) of the world approached their homes so differently than we did.

i faltered,
slept that night,
dreamt of my dissolutions,
woke up,
spoke to you,
and we both decided that homemade pop-tarts would do the trick,
for our own unspoken reasons.

i cleaned the house to ready for my baking adventure,
and as i lost myself in stressing over how much flour i should’ve added verus how much flour i actually did,
i realized:

homes aren’t the furniture arrangements, wood floors,  or even who is there with you.
homes happen when we love, no matter where in the world we happen to be, or who happens to be with us.
love is the homiest home we can have, because love never leaves us.

it just so happens that i discovered this in my kitchen because that is where i feel closest to you.

mommy, i love you always and forever.

p.s.-
what kind of pop-tarts will you make?

homemade pop tarts

(music by edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros)

(pop-tart recipe courtesy of smittenkitchen.com)