Going Home on a Sunday Afternoon

They were always the best. i would work from early in the morning to around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Sundays where my favorite day. They were one of those days where you could get excited about the next week, the new guests, and get food prepped for them as much as possible for the incoming group. It was a good day because the stress of the weekend was almost gone and we could get the kitchen really clean, not the "oh let me scrub this wall and then make 80 pizza doughs 2 hours latter." This would inevitably happen, but not on Sunday, you could scrub every single wall and it would actually be clean for a full 16 hours before they were coated with droplets of tomato sauce and soiled again.

My true love for Sunday was after i finished work. i would go home and walk my big dog among the sequoias and sugar pines. i would smell the moist or the dry ground depending on the season. Then i would take a shower and put on nice cloths. Cloths that did not perpetually smell like old garlic or have grease stains running all down the front. Especially in the fall a button up shirt and a warm sweater, nice pants, and a pair of my favorite shoes. i would then get in my car and go "home" (this was only to bass lake, not Fresno). There was a freedom on a Sunday afternoon driving into Oakhurst, maybe the weight of all the things that where weighing on my mind would release and the true beauty of all the people and the life around me would be revealed. Home was Lily's house. It was not really my home, i did not pay rent there, though maybe i should have. i was certainly there more often then not. On my way to her house i would pick up the Sunday New York Times. My favorite issue of the whole week because of all the extras it included like the magazine or the style section, also my very favorite section the wedding announcements. i would roll down my window and drive as close the box where the newspaper was housed, about 5 miles from the camp where i lived and worked. The cool afternoon air would brush against my warm arm and i would grab the newspaper and hug it like a child and his security blanket. i love the smell, the feel of the newsprint, and the sound of the pages turning of the paper. The weight of the newspaper always felt like the perfect weight, not to light and not to heavy, but more heavy then light. At this point i would call Lily and she would start a pot of coffee. She worked Sunday mornings too and Sunday afternoon were always lazy but very rejuvenating. i would drive down the beat up road deep into the woods. The roads were narrow and there were always crazy dogs that would chase the car. Just as soon as you thought the croaked road was going to end somewhere deep in the magic backwoods of Dorstan Drive you would approach a dead end and a magical house.

The newspaper and i would make are way up the stairs to open the front door, we would smell the coffee brewing. We would pour ourselves a cup of coffee and then Lily and i would get intimate with our lover, The New York Times, Sunday edition. She would read the national news section and the week in review. i would start with the magazine and then read the travel pages. We would read the marriage announcements and discuss what really thought of the people getting married. Were they announceing their marriages for status, an old family tradition, or if they were really in love? We always omitted the sports and business section because even if either of us wanted to be interested there was no way that would ever happen. Those sections where tossed aside in some sorted form of abuse. i suppose, we are all human and even with our deepest loves we have the potential and often times hurt portions of our loved ones even if we do not intend too. We would then switch sections and chat about the things of interest we read in our sections.

Some times we would make dessert or have a slice of cake leftover from some church function earlier that day. There is somethings incredible about three or four o'clock in the afternoon with a cup of coffee and slice of cake. If you practise this religiously, i do declare and believe that the calories from the cake do not apply to your waist line, only at this time of the day. There is something in the setting Autumn sun and the glow radiating from the oak leaves. So maybe plant an oak tree so you too can participate in the magic and pleasure our lord has given us in the simplicity of life in these moments.

i think "home" for myself really has nothing to do with a location. Its really the people, the safety and the comfort you find in another person or people that are near to you. There are few to many connections we make with people on a deep level. Anymore, with technology and social networking, even this blog, we use to connect with people but we really do not. Human beings that you trust to share the intimate things of life with is where we really find connection. These do not happen enough, there is something about a broken world where we choose not to connect because the vulnerability and probability that another person will cause more pain then good in our lives. i think i will always strive to find the line and balance of these opposite corresponding ideas. i still find this hard for myself and i am writing this to myself first before i present it to you.

The world to a mid twenties kind of person is confusing because everybody is looking for some sort of family structure. Most 20 somethings find this with their friends and the people they choose to surround themselves with. This really is more true to the 20 somethings who do not have a committed intimate connection with a partner. The family structure of close friends is where i found "home" for myself in the last few years in 4th of July celebrations, dinner get togethers, and more specifically the mundane routine of a Sunday afternoon. In an event driven life these things evoked "home".