Home Is Wherever I'm With You

Right now, I am enjoying the fifth night in our new home, waiting for my husband to come back from the woodshop. Molly is splayed out on the cool wood floor, the day's heat and humidity is abating some. A breeze is coming through the window and a tree's shadow flitters across the floorboards. Crickets are chirping—they have been all day now, as though they never got the memo that told them they are supposed to only come out at night. Conspicuously absent: people yelling, sirens blaring, helicopters whirring, semi trucks clattering and rattling down the street. Cicadas layer their weirdly electronic-orchestra call like waves lapping the beach. In truth, we are only a mile or two from our former home but it feels like a world away.

It's quiet, and still full of boxes and unordered multitudes of things we deemed important enough to move, waiting patiently to figure out what to do with them. I'm enveloping myself in September Issues...fall fashion bonanzas and sales, coffee-table books about home décor, and enjoying it all, reminding myself that I wanted a house, and the things and the wardrobe will have to come in their own time.

A new house. A fresh start. Changing some old habits. Making new traditions. Ownership. We are now landlords of our downtown loft. Today in the car, after transferring keys and paperwork to actual, real-life renters, William turns to me and says, "Did you ever think you would be a landlord?" I grin, even though I'd rather run screaming from the world of leases and rent and managing anything other than my overfilled daily life. "Nope," I say, with good intention, and he smiles back at me.

Last night and the night before we ate succulent summer tomatoes and corn on the cob, drank some champagne. This is it. Home.