There's No Place Like Home

Mt. Kineo on Moosehead Lake
View from the top of Mt. Kineo

After spending two weeks in the backwoods of Maine, the Rhode Island air felt heavy, smothering. The cars on every side of my parent’s Tacoma made me feel claustrophobic. Maine was light, airy and open, so different than this. I put my head back down in my makeshift bed in the backseat and thought of the majestic mountains, lakes, and rivers we were leaving behind. As my thoughts drifted, so did my consciousness, and I quickly fell back asleep.

I didn’t need to be able to see my surroundings to know that we were home. The crunch of the gravel under the tires, the old pothole, and the very tops of the trees that I could see while still lying down in the backseat told me so. Getting out of the car after six hours was not nearly as liberating as it should have been. Looking up at the sky, all I cared about were the millions of stars that were invisible to me now. Last night, they were all so close, so clear, so indescribable. Tonight, most of the stars were hiding from me.

Sighing, I grabbed what I could carry from the truck and made my way to the big front door of the brown colonial I had grown up in. I opened the door that was never locked and took a deep breath.

No matter how much I thought I missed Maine, it was good to be home. The scent that greeted me at the door was enough to remind me of that. The smell of wood from my post and beam house, the lingering scent of our laundry, and scents I couldn’t even place- every smell welcomed me home. I walked through the thankfully level kitchen, such a nice change from the slanted floor of the cabin in Maine, and up the stairs to my bedroom. How nice it was to have a bedroom instead of one large, open room that functions as the living room, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom! I gratefully shut my bedroom door and plopped down into my full size bed, falling asleep as soon as my head hit my familiar old pillow. This time, the thoughts of Maine were fond memories, but they were not better than the reality of knowing I was home.