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Back Home Again

 Arrived back to Indiana last night – warm greetings from family, home at the end of a long day’s travel. But I am not quite here yet. As I’ve experienced before with journeys that take you not just to new landscapes, but to interior byways, it takes a bit to arrive.

So today is a day outside of days. Some job emails, some catch up phone calls, a lot of laundry, intermittent conversations with Gracie (the four legged one) and much staring out the windows at melting snow I am just starting to catch up with myself.

 I haven’t turned on radio or tv yet, I am not quite ready for American twang, I am still hearing the lilt of Irish whether its in the language in the book of short stories “The Spinning Heart” that I bought my first day in Dublin, or the song I recorded on my phone the last night I sat in on music making at Dalton’s in Kinsale, or the conversations that are still echoing around in my head.

 I am glad for the familiar of home, and the challenge that being in the familiar creates when I try to integrate the sounds, ideas, and landscapes – both exterior and interior – that I bring back with me. Moving slowly helps, silence helps, as does the long stretch of a driveway that reminds me that home, once you’ve claimed it,  is always on the other end of something.