After being away at my family's house for the holiday weekend, I found that coming home meant something different.

I used to think that coming home meant ending up in my parents house after swim practice/violin lessons with my brother in his room or watching tv and I in mine or under Mama's feet. We were perhaps working on homework or playing with a toy; preparing dinner or practicing an instrument. Dad might not be home yet, or it might be his day off and he is coming in with the groceries ready to have help to put them away. Around four thirty or five o'clock maybe as late as six, the pink radio box on top of the dryer in the kitchen would sound off to NPR's All Things Considered: da, da, da, da, da, da, da-de-da.

Today home means something different. It means moths around the lamps. It means happy dogs grateful you are home because the old dog died and they don't know what to think. It means having my husband there to greet me. It means a quilt on the bed and no air conditioning. It means fresh tomatoes off a neighbor's farm and flowers to the friends down the street whose daughter finally passed from cancer. It means washing dishes by hand, listening to the katydids sing. It means remembering to turn the lights off to keep the power down and the heat away in the summer. It means wondering why yet another calf is pinned in the barn hollerin for its mama and giving a new chair to the farmer who watches his cows under the big tree that shades the back of the house and then some, while the trough fills with water. It's about no noise. It's about peace and quiet. It's about rising and falling with the sun. It's about listening to the chimes on the grandmother clock. It's about planning a trip to town. It's about friends who are family. It's about lovin and losin and livin and lovin some more.

My home today is about life on a farm.