Roaming Hearts on the Range

Man, this is taking me back.

We (and by ‘we’ I mean Katie and I) stayed the night on our friend Anna’s couches, and I can’t help but smile remembering all the couch-surfing I’ve done down through the years. Being transient is a very different feeling from having a home of your own, but by no means is it a bad thing. There’s something nice about knowing you know people who love you enough to put you up, and that you have enough of those people stretched out across a continent to keep you going for a while, no matter what life might fling at you. Also, there’s something freeing about having nothing more than what you can fit in a suit-case: fewer things to worry about. Of course, this is me just playing pretend, since I have a whole apartment full of stuff back in Birmingham, but it reminds me of the days when I had less, and I don’t mind that at all…

Right now it’s a little past eight in the morning, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table staring out the corner-window at the wet, gray day. Cars roll past, children stroll by (one assumes they’re going to school, which gives me a bit of an “In my day we had to be there before eight!” moment) and a soft shimmer of rain falls on the impossibly green glass. I am so in love with this part of the country, and with the way my spirit opens up when I’m here.

The house that Anna lives in with her friends Zach and Rebecca is absolutely perfect and wonderful, exactly the sort of place I’d like to live in with Nathan one of these days. And it’s more than just the physical traits of the house (although of course I am a sucker for high ceilings and hardwood floors): it’s the feel of the place. This is a house with a lot of love, a lot of creativity, and a lot of kindness; it feels like a place that would be home to just about anyone who walked into it. There is art all over the walls (much of it done by my hosts), home-baked bread sitting on the table in front of me (okay, okay, also in my mouth being chewed), a sweet dog laying at my feet, and chickens clucking contentedly outside. It is a place that feels calm and happy and right to me. So yes, it is the kind of place I’d like to create with Nathan one of these days.

Maybe even this rain-swept neighborhood.